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NEGRO POETS 
AND THEIR POEMS 










EMANCIPATION 

Meta Warrick Fuller 


1 


/ 






NEGRO POETS 
AND THEIR POEMS 


BY 

ROBERT T. KERLIN 

AUTHOR OF “THE VOICE OF THE NEGRo” 


Still comes the Perfect Thing to man 
As came the olden gods, in dreams. 

J. Mord Allen. 


ILLUSTRATED 



ASSOCIATED PUBLISHERS, Inc., 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 


fS 

. A/ 4 - ^ 4 - 


Copyright, 1923, 

By 

THE ASSOCIATED PUBLISHERS, Inc. 



DEC 21 <3 


©C1A7GGG27 


nvc \ 





To the Black and Unknown Bards who gave to the 
world the priceless treasure of those “canticles of love 
and woe/’ the camp-meeting Spirituals; more partic¬ 
ularly, to those untaught singers of the old plantations 
of the South, whose melodious lullabies to the babes of 
both races entered with genius-quickening power into the 
souls of Poe and Lanier, Dunbar and Cotter: to them, 
for whom any monument in stone or bronze were but 
mockery, I dedicate this monument of verse, budded by 
the children of their vision. 











CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Preface .xiii 

CHAPTER I 

The Present-Day Negro Heritage of Song . . 1 

I. Untaught Melodies: Folk Song .... 4 

1. The Spirituals. 6 

2. The Seculars.12 

II. The Earlier Poetry of Art.20 

1. Jupiter Hammon and Phillis Wheatley . 20 

2. Charles L. Reason.24 

3. George Moses Horton.25 

4. Mrs. Frances E. W. Harper.26 

5. James Madison Bell and Albery A. Whit¬ 

man ./.32 

6. Paul Laurence Dunbar l / .37 

7. J. Mord Allen ‘.48 

CHAPTER II 

The Present Renaissance of the Negro ... 51 

I. A Glance at the Field.51 

II. Some Representatives of the Present Era . . 70 

1. The Cotters, Father and Son .... 70 

vii 










Vlll 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

2. James David Corrothers.85 

3. A Group of Singing Johnsons: 


James Weldon Johnson.90 

Charles Bertram Johnson.95 

Fenton Johnson.99 

Adolphus Johnson.104 

4. William Stanley Braithwaite .... 105 

5. George Reginald Margetson.109 

6. William Moore.Ill 

7. Joshua Henry Jones, Jr.113 

8. Walter Everette Hawkins.119 

9. Claude McKay.126 

10. Leslie Pinckney Hill.131 


CHAPTER III 

The Heart of Negro Womanhood . 

... 139 

1. 

Miss Eva A. Jessye .... 

. . . 139 

2. 

Mrs. J. W. Hammond . 

. . . 142 

3. 

Mrs. Alice Dunbar-Nelson . 

. . . 144 

4. 

Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson 

... 148 

5. 

Miss Angelina W. Grimke . 

. . . 152 

6. 

Mrs. Anne Spencer .... 

... 156 

7. 

Miss Jessie Fauset .... 

... 160 


CHAPTER IV 


Ad Astra per Aspera . . ... 

... 163 

I. Per Aspera. 

... 163 

1. Edward Smythe Jones . 

... 163 

2. Raymond Garfield Dandridge . 

... 169 












CONTENTS 


IX 


PAGE 

3. George Marion McClellan.173 

4. Charles P. Wilson.179 

5. Leon R. Harris.180 

6. Irvin W. Underhill.185 

II. Ad Astra.187 

1. James C. Hughes.187 

2. Leland Milton Fisher.189 

3. W. Clarence Jordan.190 

4. Roscoe C. Jamison.191 

CHAPTER V 

The New Forms of Poetry .197 

I. Free Verse.197 

1. Will Sexton.197 

2. Andrea Razafkeriefo.197 

3. Langston Hughes.200 

II. Prose Poems.201 

1. W. E. Burghardt DuBois.201 

2. Kelly Miller.206 

3. Charles H. Conner.209 

4. William Edgar Bailey.213 

5. R. Nathaniel Dett.214 

CHAPTER VI 

Dialect Verse .218 

1. Waverly Turner Carmichael .... 219 

2. Joseph S. Cotter, Sr.220 

3. Raymond Garfield Dandridge .... 221 

4. Sterling M. Means.222 

5. J. Mord Allen.223 



























X 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

6. James Weldon Johnson.226 

7. Theodore Henry Schackleford . . . 228 

CHAPTER YII 

The Poetry of Protest .229 

Lucian B. Watkins.237 

CHAPTER VIII 

Miscellaneous .243 

I. Eulogistic Poems.243 

II. Commemorative and Occasional Poems . . 254 


Index of Authors, with Biographical and Bib¬ 
liographical Notes.269 


Index of Titles 


281 







ILLUSTRATIONS 


Emancipation, by Meta V. W. Fuller, Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Inspiration, by Meta Y. W. Fuller .... 11 

Dancers.16 

Phillis Wheatley.23 

Frances E. W. Harper.27 

James Madison Bell.33 

Paul Laurence Dunbar.38 

Ethiopia—Awakening, by Meta Y. W. Fuller . 45 

Joseph S. Cotter, Sr.70 

Joseph S. Cotter, Jr.81 

J. D. CORROTHERS.86 

James Weldon Johnson.91 

Charles Bertram Johnson.95 

George Reginald Margetson.110 

Joshua Henry Jones, Jr.. . . 113 

Walter Everette Hawkins.121 

Claude McKay.126 

Leslie Pinckney Hill.131 

Eva A. Jessye.139 















Xll 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

Mrs. J. W. Hammond. 142 

Alice Dunbar Nelson.145 

Mrs. G. D. Johnson. 148 

Angelina Grimke. 152 

Mrs. Anne Spencer.157 

Jessie Redmon Fauset.160 

Edward Smythe Jones. 163 

Raymond G. Dandridge . . . >. ,. . 169 

; 

George M. McClellan.173 

Leon R. Harris. 181 

Irvin W. Underhill.185 

Roscoe C. Jamison.192 

Langston Hughes .199 

W. E. B. Du Bois.201 

Kelly Miller.206 

Charles H. Conner.210 

R. Nathaniel Dett.215 

Theodore H. Shackleford.228 


Equality and Justice for All, from the Schurz 


Monument. 229 

Lucian B. Watkins. 237 

Mae Smith Johnson .......... 243 





















PREFACE 

Ad astra per aspera —that is the old Roman adage. 
Magnificent is it, and magnificently is it being in these 
days exemplified by the American Negroes, particularly 
by the increasing number of educated and talented 
American Negroes, and most particularly by those who 
feel the urge to express in song the emotions and aspira¬ 
tions of their people. A surprisingly large number is 
this class. Without exhausting the possibilities of selec¬ 
tion I have quoted in this anthology of contemporary 
Negro poetry sixty odd writers of tolerable verse that 
exhibits, besides form, at least one fundamental quality 
of poetry, namely, passion. 

The mere number, large as it is, would of course not 
signify by itself. Nor does the phrase “tolerable verse,” 
cautiously chosen, seem to promise much. What this 
multitude means, and whether the verse be worthy of a 
more complimentary description, I leave to the reader’s 
judgment. Quality of expression and character of con¬ 
tent are of course the prepotent considerations. 

While, in a preliminary section, I have passed in review 
the poetry of the Negro up to and including Dunbar, 
not neglecting the old religious songs of the plantation, 
or “Spirituals,” and the dance, play, and nursery 
rhymes, or “Seculars,” yet strictly speaking this is a 
representation of new Negro voices, an anthology of pres¬ 
ent-day Negro verse, with biographical items and critical, 
or at least appreciative comment. 

I wish most heartily to express my obligations to the 


xm 



XIV 


PREFACE 


publishers and authors of the volumes I have drawn 
upon for selections. They are named in the Index and 
Biographical and Bibliographical Notes at the end of the 
text. But for the reader’s convenience I collect their 
names here: 

Richard E. Badger, publisher of Walter Everette 
Hawkins’s Chords and Discords; A. B. Caldwell, At¬ 
lanta, Ga., publisher of Sterling M. Means’ The Deserted 
Cabin and Other Poems; the Cornhill Company, pub¬ 
lishers of Waverley Turner Carmichael’s From the Heart 
of a Folk; Joseph S. Cotter’s The Band of Gideon; 
Georgia Douglas Johnson’s The Heart of a Woman; 
Charles Bertram Johnson’s Songs of My People; James 
Weldon Johnson’s Fifty Years and Other Poems; Joshua 
Henry Jones’s Poems of the Four Seas; Dodd, Mead and 
Company, publishers of Dunbar’s Poems; the Grafton 
Press, publishers of H. Cordelia Ray’s Poems; Har- 
court, Brace & Company, publishers of W. E. Burghardt 
DuBois’s Darkwater ; Pritchard and Ovington’s The 
Upward Path; the Macmillan Company, publishers of 
Thomas W. Talley’s Negro Folk Rhymes; the Neale Pub¬ 
lishing Company, publishers of Kelley Miller’s Out of 
the House of Bondage; J. L. Nichols & Company, Naper¬ 
ville, Ill., publishers of Mrs. Dunbar-Nelson’s The 
Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer, and The Life and 
Works of Paul Laurence Dunbar; the Stratford Com¬ 
pany, publishers of Joshua Henry Jones’s The Heart of 
the World and Other Poems; and Leslie Pinckney 
Hill's The Wings of Oppression. It is with their kind 
permission I am privileged to use selections from the 
books named. To The Crisis, The Favorite Magazine, 
and The Messenger, I am indebted for several selections, 
which I gratefully acknowledge. 


! 


PREFACE 


xv 


To readers who are disposed to study the poetry of the 
Negro I would commend Dr. James Weldon Johnson’s 
The Book of American Negro Poetry (Harcourt, Brace 
& Co.) and Mr. Arthur A. Schomburg’s A Bibliograph¬ 
ical Checklist of American Negro Poetry (Charles F. 
Hartman, New York). I am indebted to both these books 
and authors. To Mr. Schomburg I am also indebted for 
the loan of many of the pictures of the earlier poets. 

R. T. K. 

West Chester, Pa. 

March 22, 1923. 







NEGRO POETS AND 
THEIR POEMS 


CHAPTER I 

THE NEGRO *S HERITAGE OF SONG 

As an empire may grow up within an empire 
without observation so a republic of letters within 
a republic of letters. That thing is happening to¬ 
day in this land of ours. A literature of signifi¬ 
cance on many accounts, and not without various 
and considerable merits. Its producers are Ne¬ 
groes. Culture, talent, genius—or something very 
like it—are theirs. Nor is it 1 ‘the mantle of 
Dunbar” they wrap themselves in, but an unbor¬ 
rowed singing robe, that better fits “the New 
Negro / 9 The list of names in poetry alone would 
stretch out, were I to start telling them over, until 
I should bring suspicion upon myself as no trust¬ 
worthy reporter. Besides, the mere names would 
mean nothing, since, as intimated, this little repub¬ 
lic has grown up unobserved in our big one. 

It may be more for the promise held forth by 
their thin little volumes than for the intrinsic 
merit of their performance that we should esteem 

the verse-makers represented in this survey of 

1 


2 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


contemporary Negro poetry. Yet on many grounds 
they should receive candid attention, both from 
the students of literature and the students of 
sociology. Recognition of real literary merit will 
be accorded by the one class of students, and recog¬ 
nition of new aspects of the most serious race 
problem of the ages will be forced upon the second 
class. Justification enough for the present survey 
and exhibition will be acknowledged by all who are 
earnestly concerned either with literature or with 
life. 

Perhaps, unconsciously, in my comments and 
estimates I have not steadfastly kept before me 
absolute standards of poetry. But where and 
when was this ever done? Doubtless in critiques 
of master poets by master critics, and only there. 
In writing of contemporary verse, by courtesy 
called poetry, we compromise, our estimates are 
relative, we make allowances, our approvals and 
disapprovals are toned according to the known 
circumstances of production. And this is right. 

If the prospective reader opens this volume with 
the demand in his mind for novelty of language, 
form, imagery, idea—novelty and quaintness, per¬ 
haps amusing “ originality ”, or grotesqueness—let 
him reflect how unreasonable a similar demand on 
the part of English critics was a century ago 
relative to the beginnings of American poetry. 
Were not American poets products of the same 
culture as their contemporaries in England? 
What other language had they than the language 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


3 


of Shakespeare and Wordsworth, Keats and 
Tennyson? The same is essentially true of the 
American Negro—or the Negro American, if you 
choose. He is the heir of Anglo-Saxon culture, 
he has been nurtured in the same spiritual soil as 
his contemporary of the white race, the same 
traditions of language, form, imagery, and idea 
are his. Everything possible has been done to 
stamp out his own African traditions and native 
propensities. Therefore, let no unreasonable de¬ 
mand be laid upon these Negro rhymers. 

Notwithstanding, something distinctive, and 
something uniquely significant, may be discerned 
in these verse productions to reward the perusal. 
But this may not be the reader’s chief reward. 
That may be his discovery, that, after all, a won¬ 
derful likeness rather than unlikeness to the 
poetry of other races looks forth from this poetry 
of the children of Ham. A valuable result would 
this be, should it follow. 

Before attempting a survey of the field of con¬ 
temporary verse it will advantage us to cast a 
backward glance upon the poetic traditions of the 
Negro, to see what is the present-day Negro poet’s 
heritage of song. These traditions will be re¬ 
viewed in two sections: 1. Untaught Melodies; 

2. The Poetry of Art. This backward glance will 
comprehend all that was sung or written by colored 
people from Jupiter Hammon to Paul Laurence 
Dunbar. 


4 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


I. Untaught Melodies 

The Negro might well be expected to exhibit a 
gift for poetry. His gift for oratory has long been 
acknowledged. The fact has been accepted with¬ 
out reflection upon its significance. It should 
have been foreseen that because of the close kin¬ 
ship between oratory and poetry the Negro would 
some day, with more culture, achieve distinction 
in the latter art, as he had already achieved dis¬ 
tinction in the former art. The endowments which 
make for distinction in these two great kindred 
arts, it must also be remarked, have not been prop¬ 
erly esteemed in the Negro. In other races oratory 
and poetry have been accepted as the tokens of 
noble qualities of character, lofty spiritual gifts. 
Such they are, in all races. They spring from 
mankind’s supreme spiritual impulses, from man¬ 
kind’s loftiest aspirations—the aspirations for 
freedom, for justice, for virtue, for honor and 
distinction. 

That these impulses, these aspirations, and 
these endowments are in the American Negro and 
are now exhibiting themselves in verse—it is this 
I wish to show to the skeptically minded. It will 
readily be admitted that the Negro nature is en¬ 
dowed above most others, if not all others, in fer¬ 
vor of feeling, in the completeness of self¬ 
surrender to emotion. Hence we see that 
marvelous display of rhythm in the individual and 
in the group. This capacity of submission to a 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


5 


higher harmony, a grander power, than self, 
affords the explanation of mankind’s highest 
reaches of thought, supreme insights, and noblest 
expressions. Rhythm is its manifestation. It is 
the most central and compulsive law of the uni¬ 
verse. The rhythmic soul falls into harmony and 
co-operation with the universal creative energy. 
It therefore becomes a creative soul. Rhythm 
visibly takes hold of the Negro and sways his 
entire being. It makes him one with the universal 
Power that Goethe describes, in famous lines, as 
‘ ‘ at the roaring loom of time, weaving for God the 
garment tlion seest him by.” 

But fervor of feeling must have some originating 
cause. That cause is a conception—the vivid, 
concrete presentation of an object or idea to the 
mind. The Negro has this endowment also. Ideas 
enter his mind with a vividness and power which 
betoken an extraordinary faculty of imagination. 
The graphic originality of language commonly 
exhibited by the Negro would be sufficient proof 
of this were other proof wanting. No one will 
deny to the Negro this gift. Whoever has listened 
to a colored preacher’s sermon, either of the old 
or the new school, will recall perhaps more than 
one example of poetic phrasing, more than one 
word-picture, that rendered some idea vivid be¬ 
yond vanishing. It no doubt has been made, in the 
ignorant or illiterate, an object of jest, just as 
the other two endowments have been; but these 
three gifts are the three supreme gifts of the poet, 


6 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


and the poet is the supreme outcome of the race: 
power of feeling, power of imagination, power of 
expression—and these make the poet. 


1. The Spirituals 

As a witness of the Negro’s untutored gift for 
song there are the Spirituals, his “canticles of 
love and woe,” chanted wildly, in that darkness 
which only a few rays from heaven brightened. 
Since they afford, as it were, a background for 
the song of cultured art which now begins to ap¬ 
pear, I must here give a word to these crude old 
plantation songs. They are one of the most notable 
contributions of any people, similarly circum¬ 
stanced, to the world’s treasury of song, altogether 
the most appealing. Their significance for history 
and for art—more especially for art—awaits inter¬ 
pretation. There are signs that this interpretation 
is not far in the future. Dvorak, the Bohemian, 
aided by the Negro composer, Harry T. Burleigh, 
may have heralded, in his “New World Sym¬ 
phony, ’ ’ the consummate achievement of the future 
which shall be entirely the Negro’s. Had Samuel 
Coleridge-Taylor been an American instead of an 
English Negro, this theme rather than the Indian 
theme might have occupied his genius—the evi¬ 
dence whereof is that, removed as he was from 
the scenes of plantation life and the tribulations 
of the slaves, yet that life and those tribulations 


I 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 7 

touched his heart and found a place, though a 
minor one, in his compositions. 

But the sister art of poetry may anticipate 
music in the great feat of embodying artistically 
the yearning, suffering, prayerful soul of the 
African in those centuries when he could only 
with patience endure and trust in God—and wail 
these mournfullest of melodies. Some lyrical 
drama like “Prometheus Bound,*’ hut more touch¬ 
ing as being more human; some epic like “Para¬ 
dise Lost,” but nearer to the common heart of 
man, and more lyrical; some “Divina Commedia,” 
that shall he the voice of those silent centuries of 
slavery, as Dante *s poem was the voice of the long- 
silent epoch preceding it, or some lyrical ‘ ‘ passion 
play** like that of Oberammergau, is the not im¬ 
probable achievement of some descendant of the 
slaves. 

In a poem of tender appeal, James Weldon 
Johnson has celebrated the “black and unknown 
bards, ” who, without art, and even without letters, 
produced from their hearts, weighed down with 
sorrows, the immortal Spirituals: 

O black and unknown bards of long ago, 

How came your lips to touch the sacred fire ? 

IIow, in your darkness, did you come to know 
The power and beauty of the minstrel’s lyre? 

Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes? 

Who first from out the still watch, lone and long, 
Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise 
Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song? 


8 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 

So begins this noble tribute to the nameless 
natural poets whose hearts, touched as a harp by 
the Divine Spirit, gave forth 4 ‘ Swing Low, Sweet 
Chariot,” and “Nobody Knows de Trouble I See,” 
“Steal Away to Jesus,” and “Roll, Jordan, 
Roll.” 

Great praise does indeed rightly belong to that 
black slave-folk who gave to the world this treas¬ 
ure of religious song. To the world, I say, for they 
belong as truly to the whole world as do the quaint 
and incomparable animal stories of Uncle Remus. 
Their appeal is to every human heart, but espe¬ 
cially to the heart that has known great sorrow 
and which looks to God for help. 

It is only of late their meaning has begun to 
dawn upon us—their tragic, heart-searching mean¬ 
ing. Who in hearing these Spirituals sung to-day 
by the heirs of their creators can doubt what 
they meant when they were wailed in the quarters 
or shouted in wild frenzy in the camp-meetings of 
the slaves? Even the broken, poverty-stricken 
English adds infinitely to the pathos: 

I’m walking on borrowed land, 

This world ain’t none of my home. 

We’ll stand the storm, it won’t be long. 

Oh, walk together children, 

Don’t get weary. 

My heavenly home is bright and fair, 

Nor pain nor death can enter there. 


THE HEKITAGE OF SONG 


9 


Oh, steal away and pray, 

I’m looking for my Jesns. 

Oh, freedom ! oh, freedom ! oh, freedom over me ! 

An’ before I’d be a slave, 

I’ll be buried in my grave, 

And go home to my Lord an’ be free. 

Not a word here but had two meanings for the 
slave, a worldly one and a spiritual one, and only 
one meaning, the spiritual one, for the master— 
who gladly saw this religious frenzy as an emo¬ 
tional safety-valve. 

In certain aspects these Spirituals suggest the 
songs of Zion, the Psalms. Trouble is the mother 
of song, particularly of religious song. In trouble 
the soul cries out to God—‘ ‘ a very present help in 
time of trouble.” The Psalms and the Spirituals 
alike rise de profundis. But in one respect the 
songs of the African slaves differ from the songs 
of Israel in captivity: there is no prayer for 
vengeance in the Spirituals, no vindictive spirit 
ever even suggested. We can hut wonder now at 
this. For slavery at its best was degrading, cruel, 
and oppressive. Yet no imprecation, such as mars 
so many a beautiful Psalm, ever found its way into 
a plantation Spiritual. A convincing testimony 
this to that spirit in the African slave which 
Christ, by precept and example, sought to estab¬ 
lish in His disciples. If the Negro in our present 
day is growing bitter toward the white race, it 
behooves us to inquire why it is so, in view of his 


10 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


indisputable patience, meekness, and good-nature. 
We might find in our present regime a more intol¬ 
erable cruelty than belonged even to slavery, if we 
investigated honestly. There is certainly a bitter 
and vindictive tone in much of the Afro-American 
verse now appearing in the colored press. For 
both races it augurs ill. 

But I have not yet indicated the precise place 
of these Spirituals in the world’s treasury of 
song. They have a close kinship with the Psalms 
but a yet closer one with the chanted prayers of 
the primitive Christians, the Christians when they 
were the outcasts of the Roman Empire when to be 
a Christian was to be a martyr. In secret places, 
in catacombs, they sent up their triumphant though 
sorrowful songs, they chanted their litanies 

“—that came 

Like the volcano’s tongue of flame 
Up from the burning core below— 

The canticles of love and woe.” 

So indeed came the Spirituals of the African 
slave. These songs might in truth, to use a figure 
of the old poets, be called the melodious tears of 
those who wailed them. An African proverb says, 
“We weep in our hearts like the tortoise.” In 
their hearts—so wept the slaves, silently save for 
these mournful cries in melody. Without means 
of defense, save a nature armored with faith, when 
assailed, insulted, oppressed, they could but imi¬ 
tate the tortoise when he shuts himself up in his 



Inspiration 

By Meta Warrick Fuller 




12 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


shell and patiently takes the blows that fall. The 
world knew not then, nor fully knows now—partly 
because of African buoyancy, pliability, and opti¬ 
mism—what tears they wept. These Spirituals 
are the golden vials spoken of in Holy Writ, “full 
of odors, which are the prayers of saints”—an 
everlasting memorial before the throne of God. 
Other vials there are, different from these, and 
they, too, are at God’s right hand. 

A Negro sculptor, Mrs. Meta Warrick Fuller, 
not knowing of this proverb about the tortoise 
which has only recently been brought from Africa, 
but simply interpreting Negro life in America, has 
embodied the very idea of the African saying in 
bronze. Under the title “Secret Sorrow” a man 
is represented as eating his own heart. 

The interpretation in art of the Spirituals, or a 
poetry of art developed along the lines and in the 
spirit of those songs, is something we may expect 
the black singers of no distant day to produce. 
Already we have many a poem that offers striking 
reminiscences of them. 

2. The Seculars 

But other songs the Negro has which are 
more noteworthy from the point of view of art 
than the Spirituals: songs that are richer in 
artistic effects, more elaborate in form, more 
varied and copious in expression. These are the 
Negro’s secular songs and rhymes, his dance, play, 
and love-making songs, his gnomic and nursery 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


13 


rhymes.* It is not exaggeration to say that in 
rhythmic and melodic effects they surpass any 
other body of folk-verse whatsoever. In wit, wis¬ 
dom, and quaint turns of humor no other folk- 
rhymes equal them. Prolific, too, in such produc¬ 
tions the race seems to have been, since so many 
at this late day were to be found. 

It comes not within the scope of this anthology 
to include any of these folk-rhymes of the elder 
day, but a few specimens seem necessary to indi¬ 
cate to the young Negro who would be a poet his 
rich heritage of song and to the white reader what 
essentially poetic traits the Negro has by nature. 
It was ‘‘black and unknown bards,” slaves, too, 
who sang or said these rhymes: 

Oh laugh an ’ sing an ’ don’t git tired. 

"We’s all gwine home, some Mond’y, 

To de honey pond an ’ fritter trees; 

An’ ev’ry day’ll be Sund’y. 

Pride, too, and a sense of values had the Negro, 
bond or free: 

My name’s Ran, I wuks in de san’; 

But I’d druther be a Nigger dan a po’ white man. 

Gwinter hitch my oxes side by side, 

An ’ take my gal fer a big fine ride. 

After a description of anticipated pleasures and 

* Happily a great number of these, about three hundred and 
fifty, accompanied by an essay setting forth their nature, origin, 
and elements, are now made accessible in Negro Folk Rhymes, by 
Thomas W. Talley, of Fisk University; the Macmillan Company, 
publishers, 1922. 


14 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


a comic interlude in dialogue, the ballad from 
which these two couplets are taken concludes with 
that varied repetition of the first stanza which we 
find so effective in the poems of art: 

I’d druther be a Nigger, an’ plow ole Beck, 

Dan a white Hill Billy wid his long red neck. 

Song or rhyme was, as ever, heart’s ease to the 
Negro in every trouble. Here are two rhymes 
that “pack up” and put away two common 
troubles: 

She writ me a letter 

As long as my eye. 

An’ she say in dat letter: 

‘ * My Honey!—Good-by! ’ ’ 

Dem whitefolks say dat money talk. 

If it talk lak dey tell, 

Den ev’ry time it come to Sam, 

It up an ’ say: ‘ ‘ Farewell! ’ ’ 

Going to the nursery—it was the one room of 
the log cabin, or the great out-of-doors—we find 
the old-time Negro’s head filled with a Mother 
Goose more enchanting than any printed and pic¬ 
tured one in the “great house” of the white child: 

W’en de big owl whoops, 

An’ de screech owl screeks, 

An ’ de win ’ makes a howlin ’ sound; 

You liddle woolly heads 
Had better kiver up, 

Caze de “hants” is cornin’ ’round. 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


15 


A, B, C, 

Doubled down D; 

I ’se so lazy you cain’t see me. 

A, B, C, 

Doubled down D; 

Lazy Chilluns gits hick’ry tea. 

TV */V‘ “7V“ W TV* 

Buck an’ Berry run a race, 

Buck fall down an’ skin his face. 

Buck an’ Berry in a stall; 

Buck, he try to eat it all. 

Buck, he e’t too much, you see. 

So he died wid choleree. 

But it is in the dance songs that rhythm in its 
perfection makes itself felt and that repetends 
are employed with effects which another Poe or 
Lanier-might appropriate for supreme art. A 
lively scene and gay frolicsome movements are 
conjured up by the following dance songs: 

CHICKEN IN THE BREAD TRAY 

“Auntie, will yo’ dog bite?”— 

“No, Chile! No!” 

Chicken in de bread tray 
A makin’ up dough. 

“Auntie, will yo’ broom hit?”— 

“Yes, Chile!” Pop! 

Chicken in de bread tray; 

“Flop! Flop! Flop!” 


16 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


“Auntie, will yo’ oven bake?”— 
“Yes. Jes fry!”— 

“What’s dat chicken good fer ?”— 
“Pie! Pie! Pie!” 

“Auntie, is yo’ pie good?”— 
“Good as you could ’spec’.” 
Chicken in de bread tray; 

“Peck! Peck! Peck!” 



Dancers 


JUBA 

Juba dis, an’ Juba dat, 

Juba skin dat Yaller Cat. Juba! Juba! 

Juba jump an’ Juba sing. 

Juba cut dat Pigeon’s Wing. Juba! Juba! 

Juba, kick off Juba’s shoe. 

Juba, dance dat Jubal Jew. Juba! Juba! 

Juba, whirl dat foot about. 

Juba, blow dat candle out. Juba! Juba! 







THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


17 


Juba circle, Raise de Latch. 

Juba do dat Long Dog Scratch. Juba! Juba! 

Out of the pastime group I take a rhyme that is 
typically full of character, delicious in its wit and 
proverbial lore: 


FATTENING FROGS FOR SNAKES 

You needn’ sen’ my gal hoss apples, 

You needn’ sen’ her lasses candy; 

She would keer fer de lak o’ you, 

Ef you’d sen’ her apple brandy. 

W’y don’t you git some common sense? 

Jes git a liddle! Oh fer land sakes! 

Quit yo’ foolin’, she hain’t studyin’ you! 

Youse jes fattenin’ frogs fer snakes! 

In the love songs one finds that mingling of 
pathos and humor so characteristic of the Negro. 
The one example I shall give lacks nothing of art 
—some unknown Dunbar, some black Bobbie 
Burns, must have composed it: 


SHE HUGGED ME AND KISSED ME 

I see’d her in de Springtime, 

I see’d her in de Fall, 

I see’d her in de Cotton patch, 

A cameing from de Ball. 


18 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


She hug me, an’ she kiss me, 

She wrung my han’ an’ cried. 

She said I wus de sweetes’ thing 
Dat ever lived or died. 

She hug me an ’ she kiss me. 

Oh Heaben! De touch o’ her han’! 

She said I wus de puttiest thing 
In de shape o’ mortal man. 

I told her dat I love her, 

Dat my love wus bed-cord strong; 

Den I axed her w’en she’d have me, 

An’ she jes say, “Go long!” 

In a very striking way these folk-songs of the 
plantation suggest the old English folk-songs of 
unknown authorship and origin—the ancient tra¬ 
ditional ballads, long despised and neglected, but 
ever living on and loved in the hearts of the 
people. This unstudied poetry of the people, the 
unlettered common folk, had supreme virtues, 
the elemental and universal virtues of simplicity, 
sincerity, veracity. It had the power, in an arti¬ 
ficial age, to bring poetry back to reality, to gen¬ 
uine emotion, to effectiveness, to the common in¬ 
terests of mankind. Simple and crude as it was it 
had a merit unknown to the polished verse of the 
schools. Potential Negro poets might do well to 
ponder this fact of literary history. There is 
nothing more precious in English literature than 
this crude old poetry of the people. 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


19 


There is a book of rhymes which, every Christ¬ 
mas season, is the favorite gift, the most gladly 
received, of all that Santa Claus brings. Nor so 
at Christmas only; it is a perennial pleasure, a 
boon to all children, young and old in years. This 
book is Mother Goose’s Melodies. How many 
“immortal” epics of learned poets it has out¬ 
lived! How many dainty volumes of polished 
lyrics has this humble book of “rhymes” seen 
vanish to the dusty realms of dark oblivion! In 
every home it has a place and is cherished. Its 
contents are better known and more loved than 
the contents of any other book. Untutored, name¬ 
less poets, nature-inspired, gave this priceless 
boon to all generations of children, and to all sorts 
and conditions—an immortal book. As a life-long 
teacher and student of poetry, I venture, with no 
fear, the assertion that from no book of verse in 
our language can the whole art of poetry be so 
effectively learned as from Mother Goose’s Melo¬ 
dies. Every device of rhyme, and melody, and 
rhythm, and tonal color is exemplified here in a 
manner to produce the effects which all the great 
artists in verse aim at. This book that we all love 
—and patronize—is the greatest melodic triumph 
in the white man’s literature. 

Of like merit and certainly no less are the folk 
rhymes and songs, both the Spirituals and the 
Seculars, of the Negro. Their art potentialities 
are immense. Well may the aspirant to fame in 
poetry put these songs in his memory and peruse 


20 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


them as Burns did the old popular songs of Scot¬ 
land, to make them yield suggestions of songs at 
the highest reach of art. 

II. The Poetry of Art 

But another heritage of song, not so crude nor 
yet so precious as the Spirituals and the Folk 
Rhymes has the Negro of to-day. That heritage 
comes from enslaved and emancipated men and 
women who by some means or another learned to 
write and publish their compositions. Although 
the intrinsic value of this heritage of song cannot 
be rated high, yet, considering the circumstances 
of its production, the colored people of America 
may well take pride in it. Its incidental value can 
hardly be overestimated. In it is the most infal¬ 
lible record we have of the Negro’s inner life in 
bondage and in the years following emancipation. 
Never broken was the tradition from Jupiter 
Hammon and Phillis Wheatley, in the last half 
of the eighteenth century, to Paul Laurence Dun¬ 
bar and Joseph Seamon Cotter, in the end of the 
nineteenth, but constantly enriched by an increas¬ 
ing number of men and women who sought in the 
form of verse a record of their sufferings and 
yearnings, consolations and hopes. 

1. Jupiter Hammon and Phillis Wheatley 

Jupiter Hammon was the first American Negro 
poet of whom any record exists. His first extant 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


21 


poem, “An Evening Thought,” bears the date of 
1760, preceding therefore any poem by Phillis 
Wheatley, his contemporary, by nine years. Fol¬ 
lowing the title of the poem this information is 
given: ‘ 4 Composed by Jupiter Hammon, a Negro 
belonging to Mr. Lloyd, of Queen’s Village, on 
Long Island, the 25th of December, 1760.” With 
this poem of eighty-eight rhyming lines, printed 
on a double-column broadside, entered the Amer¬ 
ican Negro into American literature. For that 
reason alone, were his stanzas inferior to what 
they are, I should include some of them in this 
anthology. But the truth is that, as “religious” 
poetry goes, or went in the eighteenth century— 
and Hammon’s poetry is all religious—this Negro 
slave may hold up his head in almost any com¬ 
pany. 

Nevertheless, the reader must not expect poetry 
in the typical stanzas I shall quote, but just some 
remarkable rhyming for an African slave, un¬ 
taught and without precedent. “An Evening 
Thought” runs in such stanzas as the following: 

Dear Jesus give thy Spirit now, 

Thy Grace to every Nation, 

That han’t the Lord to whom we bow, 

The Author of Salvation. 

From “An .Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley, 
Ethiopian Poetess,” I take the following as a rep¬ 
resentative stanza: 


22 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


While thousands muse with earthly toys, 

And range about the street, 

Dear Phillis, seek for heaven’s joys, 

Where we do hope to meet. 

“A Poem for Children, with Thoughts on 
Death,” contains such stanzas as this: 


’Tis God alone can make you wise, 
His wisdom’s from above, 


He fills the soul with sweet supplies 
By his redeeming love. 


Two stanzas from “A Dialogue, Entitled, The 
Kind Master and the Dutiful Servant , 9 9 will show 
how that poem runs: 


MASTER 


Then will the happy day appear, 
That virtue shall increase; 


Lay up the sword and drop the spear, 
And Nations seek for peace. 


SERVANT 


Then shall we see the happy end, 
Tho’ still in some distress; 



That distant foes shall act like friends, 
And leave their wickedness. 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


23 


Jupiter Hamm on ’s birth and death dates are 
uncommemorated because unknown. Unknown, 
too, is his grave. But to his memory, no less than 
to that of Crispus Attucks, there should some¬ 
where be erected a monument. 

Since Stedman included in his Library of Amer¬ 
ican Literature a picture of Phillis Wheatley and 
specimens of li e r 
verse, a few white 
persons, less than 
scholars and more 
than general readers, 
knew, when Dunbar 
appeared, that there 
had been at least one 
poetic predecessor in 
his race. But the 
long stretch between 
the slave-girl rhymer 
of Boston and the 
elevator-boy singer 
of Davton was des- 
ert. They knew not 
of George Moses Horton of North Carolina, who 
found publication for Poems by a Slave in 1829, 
and Poetical Works in 1845. Horton, who 
learned to- write by his own efforts, is said to 
have been so fond of poetry that he would pick 
up any chance scraps of paper he saw, hoping 
to find verses. They knew not of Ann Plato, 



Phillis Wheatley 




24 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 

of Hartford, Connecticut, a slave girl who 
oublished a hook of twenty poems in 1841; 

nor of Frances Ellen 
Watkins (afterwards 
II a r p er ) whose 
Poems on Miscella¬ 
neous Subjects ap¬ 
peared in 1857, reach¬ 
ing a circulation of 
ten thousand cop¬ 
ies ; nor of Charles L. 
Reason, whose poem 
entitled Freedom , 
published in 1847, 
voiced the cry of 
millions of fellow 
blacks in bonds. 

2. Charles L. Reason 

Thus bursts forth Reason’s poetic cry, not 
unlike that of the crude Spirituals: 

0 Freedom! Freedom! Oh, how oft 
Thy loving children call on Thee! 

In wailings loud and breathings soft, 

Beseeching God, Thy face to see. 

With agonizing hearts we kneel, 

While ’round us howls the oppressor’s cry,— 

And suppliant pray that we may feel 
The ennobling glances of Thine eye. 








THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


25 


The apostrophe continues through forty-two 
stanzas, commemorating, with appreciative knowl¬ 
edge of history, the countries, battle fields, and 
heroes associated with the advance of freedom. 
After an arraignment of civil rulers and a recreant 
priesthood, the learned and noble apostrophe thus 
concludes: 

Oh, purify each holy court! 

The ministry of law and light! 

That man no longer may be bought 

To trample down his brother’s right. 

We lift imploring hands to Thee! 

We cry for those in prison bound! 

Oh, in Thy strength come! Liberty! 

And ’stablish right the wide world round. 

We pray to see Thee, face to face: 

To feel our souls grow strong and wide: 

So ever shall our injured race 

By Thy firm principles abide. 


3. George Moses Horton 

By some means or other, self-guided, the North 
Carolina slave, George Moses Horton, learned to 
read and write. His first book, Poems by a Slave, 
appeared in 1829, and other books followed until 
1865. Like Hammon, and true to his race, Horton 
is religious, and, like Reason, and again true to his 
race, he loves freedom. I choose but a few stanzas 
to illustrate his quality as a poet: 


i * --——— 

26 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 

Alas! and am I born for this, 

To wear this slavish chain? 

Deprived of all created bliss, 

Through hardship, toil, and pain ? 

How long have I in bondage lain, 

And languished to be free! 

Alas! and must I still complain, 

Deprived of liberty? 

Come, Liberty! thou cheerful sound, 

Roll through my ravished ears; 

Come, let my grief in joys be drowned, 

And drive away my fears. 

4. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper 

A female poet of the same period as Horton 
wrote in the same strain about freedom: 

Make me a grave wher’er you will, 

In a lowly plain or a lofty hill; 

Make it among earth’s humblest graves, 

But not in a land where men are slaves. 

Like Horton, she lived to see her prayer for 
freedom answered. Of the Emancipation Proc¬ 
lamation she burst forth in joy: 

It shall flash through coming ages, 

It shall light the distant years; 

And eyes now dim with sorrow 

Shall be brighter through their tears. 

This slave woman was Frances Ellen Watkins, 
by marriage Harper. Mrs. Harper attained to a 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


27 


greater popularity than any poet of her race prior 
to Dunbar. As many as ten thousand copies of 
some of her poems were in circulation in the mid¬ 
dle of the last century. Her success was not 
unmerited. Many singers of no greater merit have 
enjoyed greater ce¬ 
lebrity. She was 
%/ 

thoroughly in the 
fashion of her times, 
as Phillis Wheatley 
was in the yet preva¬ 
lent fashion of Pope, 
or, perhaps more ac¬ 
curately, C o w p e r . 

The models in the 
middle of the nine¬ 
teenth century were 
Mrs. Hemans, Whit¬ 
tier, and Longfellow. It is in their manner she 
writes. A serene and beautiful Christian spirit 
tells a moral tale in fluent ballad stanzas, not 
without poetic phrasing. In all she beholds, 
in all she experiences, there is a lesson. There 
is no grief without its consolation. Serene 
resignation breathes through all her poems—at 
least through those written after her freedom was 
achieved. Illustrations of these traits abound. A 
few stanzas from Go Work in My Vineyard will 
suffice. After bitter disappointments in attempt¬ 
ing to fulfil the command the “lesson’’ comes thus 
sweetly expressed: 






28 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


My hands were weak, but I reached them out 
To feebler ones than mine, 

And over the shadows of my life 
Stole the light of a peace divine. 

Oh, then my task was a sacred thing, 

How precious it grew in my eyes! 

’Twas mine to gather the bruised grain 
For the Lord of Paradise. 

And when the reapers shall lay their grain 
On the floors of golden light, 

I feel that mine with its broken sheaves 
Shall be precious in His sight. 

Though thorns may often pierce my feet, 

And the shadows still abide, 

The mists will vanish before His smile, 

There will be light at eventide. 

How successfully Mrs. Harper could draw a les¬ 
son from the common objects or occurrences of the 
world about us may be illustrated by the follow¬ 
ing poem: 


TRUTH 

A rock, for ages, stern and high, 

Stood frowning ’gainst the earth and sky, 
And never bowed his haughty crest 
When angry storms around him prest. 
Morn, springing from the arms of night, 
Had often bathed his brow with light, 
And kissed the shadows from his face 
With tender love and gentle grace. 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


29 


Day, pausing at the gates of rest, 

Smiled on him from the distant West, 

And from her throne the dark-browed Night 
Threw round his path her softest light. 
And yet he stood unmoved and proud, 

Nor love, nor wrath, his spirit bowed; 

He bared his brow to every blast 
And scorned the tempest as it passed. 

One day a tiny, humble seed— 

The keenest eye would hardly heed— 

Fell trembling at that stern rock’s base, 
And found a lowly hiding-place. 

A ray of light, and drop of dew, 

Came with a message, kind and true; 
They told her of the world so bright, 

Its love, its joy, and rosy light, 

And lured her from her hiding-place, 

To gaze upon earth’s glorious face. 

So, peeping timid from the ground, 

She clasped the ancient rock around, 

And climbing up with childish grace, 

She held him with a close embrace; 

Her clinging was a thing of dread; 
Where’er she touched a fissure spread, 
And he who’d breasted many a storm 
Stood frowning there, a mangled form. 

A Truth, dropped in the silent earth, 

May seem a thing of little worth, 

Till, spreading round some mighty wrong, 
It saps its pillars proud and strong, 

And o’er the fallen ruin weaves 
The brightest blooms and fairest leaves. 


30 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


The story of Vashti, who dared heroically to 
disobey her monarch-husband, is as well told in 
simple ballad measure as one may find it. I give 
it entire: 


VASHTI 

She leaned her head upon her hand 
And heard the King’s decree— 

“My lords are feasting in my halls; 

Bid Vashti come to me. 

“I’ve shown the treasures of my house, 
My costly jewels rare, 

But with the glory of her eyes 
No rubies can compare. 

“Adorn’d and crown’d I’d have her come, 
With all her queenly grace, 

And, ’mid my lords and mighty men, 
Unveil her lovely face. 

“Each gem that sparkles in my crown, 

Or glitters on my throne, 

Grows poor and pale when she appears, 
My beautiful, my own! ’ ’ 

All waiting stood the chamberlains 
To hear the Queen’s reply. 

They saw her cheek grow deathly pale, 

But light flash’d to her eye: 

“Go, tell the King,” she proudly said, 
“That I am Persia’s Queen, 

And by his crowds of merry men 
I never will be seen. 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


31 


“I’ll take the crown from off my head 
And tread it ’neath my feet, 

Before their rude and careless gaze 
My shrinking eyes shall meet. 

“A qneen unveil’d before the crowd!— 
Upon each lip my name!— 

Why, Persia’s women all would blush 
And weep for V asliti’s shame! 

“Go back! ’’ she cried, and waved her hand, 
And grief was in her eye: 

“Go, tell the King,” she sadly said, 

“That I would rather die.” 

They brought her message to the King; 
Dark flash’d his angry eye; 

’Twas as the lightning ere the storm 
Hath swept in fury by. 

Then bitterly outspoke the King, 

Through purple lips of wrath— 

11 What shall be done to her who dares 
To cross your monarch’s path ? ’ ’ 

Then spake his wily counsellors— 

“0 King of this fair land! 

From distant Ind to Ethiop, 

All bow to thy command. 

“But if, before thy servants’ eyes, 

This thing they plainly see, 

That Vashti doth not heed thy will 
Nor yield herself to thee, 


32 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


“The women, restive ’neath our rule, 

Would learn to scorn our name, 

And from her deed to us would come 
Keproach and burning shame. 

“Then, gracious King, sign with thy hand 
This stern but just decree, 

That Yashti lay aside her crown, 

Thy Queen no more to be.” 

She heard again the King’s command, 

And left her high estate; 

Strong in her earnest womanhood, 

She calmly met her fate, 

And left the palace of the King, 

Proud of her spotless name— 

A woman who could bend to grief 
But would not bow to shame. 

Those last stanzas are quite as noble as any 
that one may find in the poets whom I named as 
setting the American fashion in the era of Mrs. 
Harper. The poems of this gentle, sweet-spirited 
Negro woman deserve a better fate than has over¬ 
taken them 

5. James Madison Bell and Albery A. Whitman 

Although this is not a history of American 
Negro poetry, yet a brief notice must be given at 
this point to two other writers too important to 
be omitted even from a swift survey like the pres¬ 
ent one. They are J. Madison Bell and Albery A. 
Whitman. 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


33 


Bell, anti-slavery orator and friend of John 
Brown’s, was a prolific writer of eloquent verse. 
His original endowments were considerable. 
Denied an education in boyhood, he learned a trade 
and in manhood at 
night-schools gained 
access to the wisdom 
of books. He became 
a master of expres¬ 
sion both with tongue 
and pen. His long 
period of productiv¬ 
ity covers the history 
of his people from 
the decade before 
Emancipation till the 
death of Dunbar. 

Bell’s themes are 
lofty and he writes 
with fervid eloquence. 

There is something of 
Byronic power in the roll of his verse. An extract 
from The Progress of Liberty will be representa¬ 
tive, though an extract cannot show either the 
maintenance of power or the abundance of re¬ 
sources : 

0 Liberty, what charm so great! 

One radiant smile, one look of thine 
Can change the drooping bondsman’s fate, 

And light his brow with hope divine. 



James Madison Bell 




34 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


His manhood, wrapped in rayless gloom, 
At thy approach throws off its pall, 
And rising up, as from the tomb, 

Stands forth defiant of the thrall. 

No tyrant’s power can crush the soul 
Illumed by thine inspiring ray; 

The fiendishness of base control 

Flies thy approach as night from day. 

Ride onward, in thy chariot ride, 

Thou peerless queen; ride on, ride on— 
With Truth and Justice by thy side— 
From pole to pole, from sun to sun! 
Nor linger in our bleeding South, 

Nor domicile with race or clan; 

But in thy glorious goings forth, 

Be thy benignant object Man— 

Of every clime, of every hue, 

Of every tongue, of every race, 

’Neath heaven’s broad, ethereal blue; 

Oh! let thv radiant smiles embrace, 

Till neither slave nor one oppressed 
Remain throughout creation’s span, 

By thee unpitied and unblest 
Of all the progeny of man. 

We fain would have the world aspire 
To that proud height of free desire, 

That flamed the heart of Switzer’s Tell 
(Whose archery skill none could excell), 
When once upon his Alpine brow, 

He stood reclining on his bow, 

And saw, careering in his might— 

In all his majesty of flight— 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


35 


A lordly eagle float and swing 
Upon his broad, nntrammeled wing. 


He bent his bow, he poised his dart, 

With full intent to pierce the heart; 

But as the proud bird nearer drew, 

His stalwart arm unsteady grew, 

His arrow lingered in the groove—- 
The cord unwilling seemed to move, 

For there he saw personified 

That freedom which had been his pride; 

And as the eagle onward sped, 

O’er loftv hill and towering tree, 

He dropped his bow, he bowed his head; 

He could not shoot— ’twas Liberty! 

s 

Whitman, a younger contemporary of Bell’s, is 
the author of several long tales in verse. Like 
Bell, he wrote only in standard English, and like 
him also, shows a mastery of expression, with 
fluency of style, wealth of imagery, and a com¬ 
mand of the forms of verse given vogue by Scott 
and Byron. Both likewise write fervently of the 
wrongs suffered by the black man at the hands of 
the white. Thus far they resemble; but if we 
extend the comparison we note important differ¬ 
ences. Bell has more of the fervor of the orator 
and the sense of fact of the historian. He adheres 
closely to events and celebrates occasions. Whit¬ 
man invents tragic tales of love and romance, 
clothing them with the charm of the South and 
infusing into them the pathos which results from 


36 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


the strife of thwarted passions, the defeat of true 
love. i 

A stanza or two from Whitman’s An Idyl of the 
South will exemplify his qualities. The hero of 
this pathetic tale is a white youth of aristocratic 
parentage, the heroine is an octoroon. He is thus 
described: 

He was of manly beauty—brave and fair; 

There was the Norman iron in his blood, 

There was the Saxon in his sunny hair 
That waved and tossed in an abandoned flood; 

But Norman strength rose in his shoulders square, 
And so, as manfully erect he stood, 

Norse gods might read the likeness of their race 
In his proud bearing and patrician face. 

The heroine is thus portrayed: 

A lithe and shapely beauty; like a deer, 

She looked in wistfulness, and from you went; 

With silken shyness shrank as if in fear, 

And kept the distance of the innocent. 

But, when alone, she bolder would appear; 

Then all her being into song was sent 

To bound in cascades—ripple, whirl, and gleam, 

A headlong torrent in a crystal stream. 

Only tragedy, under the conditions, could result 
from their mutual fervent love. The poet does 
not moralize but in a figure intimates the sadness 
induced by the tale: 

The hedges may obscure the sweetest bloom— 

The orphan of the waste—the lowly flower; 



THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


37 


While in the garden, faint for want of room, 

The splendid failure pines within her bower. 

There is a wide republic of perfume, 

In which the nameless waifs of sun and shower, 

That scatter wildly through the fields and woods, 
Make the divineness of the solitudes. 

After such a manner wrote those whom we may 
call bards of an elder day. 

6. Paul Laurence Dunbar 

He came, a dark youth, singing in the dawn 
Of a new freedom, glowing o’er his lyre, 

Refining, as with great Apollo’s fire, 

His people’s gift of song. And, thereupon, 

This Negro singer, come to Helicon, 

Constrained the masters, listening, to admire, 

And roused a race to wonder and aspire, 

Gazing which way their honest voice was gone, 

With ebon face up]it of glory’s crest. 

Men marveled at the singer, strong and sweet, 

Who brought the cabin’s mirth, the tuneful night, 
But faced the morning, beautiful with light, 

To die while shadows yet fell toward the west, 

And leave his laurels at his people’s feet. 

—James David Corrothers. 

Less than a generation ago William Dean How¬ 
ells hailed Paul Laurence Dunbar as “the first 
instance of an American Negro who had evinced 
innate distinction in literature,’’ “the only man of 
pure African blood and of American civilization 
to feel Negro life aesthetically and express it 


38 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


lyrically. ” It is not my purpose to give Dunbar 
space and consideration in this book commensurate 
with his importance. Its scope does not, strictly 
speaking, include him and his predecessors. They 
are introduced here, but to provide an historical 
background. The object of this book is to exhibit 

the achievement of 
the Negro in verse 
since Dunbar. Even 
though it were true, 
which I think it is not, 
that no American 
Negro previous to 
Dunbar had evinced 
innate distinction in 
literature, this an¬ 
thology, I believe, 
will reveal that many 
American Negroes in 
this new day are 
evincing, if not in¬ 
nate distinction, yet 
cultured talent, in 
literature. 

The sonnet to Dunbar which stands at the head 
of this section was composed by a Negro who was 
by three years Dunbar’s senior. His opportuni¬ 
ties in early life were far inferior to Dunbar’s. 
At nineteen years of age, with almost inconsid¬ 
erable schooling, he was a boot-black in a Chicago 
barber shop. I give his sonnet here—other poems 



Paul Laurence Dunbar 





THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


39 


of his I give in another chapter—in evidence of 
that distinction in literature, innate or otherwise, 
which is rather widespread among American 
Negroes of the present time. Dunbar himself 
might have been proud to put his name to this 
sonnet. 

When this marvel, a Negro poet, so vouched for, 
appeared in the West, like a new star in the 
heavens, a few white people, a very few, knew, 
vaguely, that back in Colonial times there was a 
slave woman in Boston who had written verses, 
who was therefore a prodigy. The space between 
Phillis Wheatley and this new singer was desert. 
But Nature, as people think, produces freaks, or 
sports; therefore a Negro poet was not absolutely 
beyond belief, since poets are rather freakish, 
abnormal creatures anyway. Incredulity there¬ 
fore yielded to an attitude scarcely worthier, 
namely, that dishonoring, irreverent interpreta¬ 
tion of a supreme human phenomenon which con¬ 
sists in denominating it a freak of nature. But 
Dunbar is a fact, as Burns, as Whittier, as Riley, 
are facts—a fact of great moment to a people and 
for a people. For one thing, he revealed to the 
Negro youth of America the latent literary powers 
and the unexploited literary materials of their 
race. He was the fecundating genius of their 
talents. Upon all his people he was a tremendously 
quickening power, not less so than his great con¬ 
temporary at Tuskegee. Doubtless it will be rec¬ 
ognized, in a broad view, that the Negro people 


40 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


of America needed, equally, both men, the counter¬ 
parts of each other. 

It needs to be remarked for white people, that 
there were two Dunbars, and that they know but 
one. There is the Dunbar of “the jingle in a 
broken tongue, ’ ’ whom Howells with gracious but 
imperfect sympathy and understanding brought 
to the knowledge of the world, and whom the pub¬ 
lic readers, white and black alike, have found it 
delightful to present, to the entire eclipse of the 
other Dunbar. That other Dunbar was the poet 
of the flaming “Ode to Ethiopia,” the pathetic 
lyric, “We Wear the Mask,” the apparently off¬ 
hand jingle but real masterpiece entitled “Life,” 
the incomparable ode “Ere sleep comes down to 
soothe the weary eyes,” and a score of other 
pieces in which, using their speech, he matches 
himself with the poets who shine as stars in the 
firmament of our admiration. This Dunbar How¬ 
ells failed to appreciate, and ignorance of him has 
been fostered, as I have intimated, by professional 
readers and writers. The first Dunbar, the gen¬ 
erally accepted one, was, as Howells pointed out, 
the artistic interpreter of the old-fashioned, van¬ 
ishing generation of black folk—the generation 
that was maimed and scarred by slavery, that 
presented so many ludicrous and pathetic, abject 
and lovable aspects in strange mixture. The sec¬ 
ond Dunbar was the prophet robed in a mantle of 
austerity, shod with fire, bowed with sorrow, as 
every true prophet has been, in whatever time, 



THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


41 


among whatever people. He was the prophet, I 
say, of a new generation, a coming generation, as 
he was the poet of a vanishing generation. The 
generation of which he was the prophet-herald has 
arrived. Its most authentic representatives are 
the poets that I put forward in this volume as 
worthy of attention. 

Dunbar’s real significance to his race has been 
admirably expressed not only by Corrothers but 
in the following lines by his biographer, Lida Keck 
Wiggins: 

Life’s lovly were laureled with verses 
And sceptered were honor and worth, 

While cabins became, through the poet, 

Fair homes of the lords of the earth. 

So it was. But “honor and worth” yet remain, 
to be “sceptered.” Such poems as these few here 
given from the choragus of the present generation 
of Negro singers will suggest the kind of honor 
and the degree of worth to which our tribute is 
due.* 

ERE SLEEP COMES DOWN TO SOOTHE THE 

WEARY EYES 

Ere sleep comes down to soothe the w T eary eyes, 

Which all the day with ceaseless care have sought 
The magic gold which from the seeker flies; 

Ere dreams put on the gown and cap of thought, 

* We are enabled to give the following poems by the kind 
permission of Dodd, Mead and Company, the publishers of 
Dunbar’s works. 


42 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


And make the waking world a world of lies,— 

Of lies most palpable, uncouth, forlorn, 

That say life’s full of aches and tears and sighs,— 

Oh, how with more than dreams the soul is torn, 

Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. 

Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, 

How all the griefs and heartaches we have known 
Come up like pois’nous vapors that arise 

From some base witch’s caldron, when the crone, 

To work some potent spell, her magic plies. 

The past which held its share of bitter pain, 

Whose ghost we prayed that Time might exorcise, 

Comes up, is lived and suffered o’er again, 

Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. 

Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, 

What phantoms fill the dimly lighted room; 

What ghostly shades in awe-creating guise 
Are bodied forth within the teeming gloom. 

What echoes faint of sad and soul-sick cries, 

And pangs of vague inexplicable pain 
That pay the spirit’s ceaseless enterprise, 

Come thronging through the chambers of the brain, 
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. 

Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, 

Where ranges forth the spirit far and free? 

Through what strange realms and unfamiliar skies 
Tends her far course to lands of mystery? 

To lands unspeakable—beyond surmise, 

Where shapes unknowable to being spring, 

Till, faint of wing, the Fancy fails and dies 
Much wearied with the spirit’s journeying, 

Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


43 


Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, 

How questioneth the soul that other soul,— 

The inner sense which neither cheats nor lies, 

But self exposes unto self, a scroll 
Full writ with all life’s acts unwise or wise, 

In characters indelible and known; 

So, trembling with the shock of sad surprise, 

The soul doth view its awful self alone, 

Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes. 

Ere sleep comes down to seal the weary eyes, 

The last dear sleep whose soft embrace is balm, 
And whom sad sorrow teaches us to prize 
For kissing all our passions into calm, 

Ah, then, no more we heed the sad world’s cries, 
Or seek to probe th’ eternal mystery, 

Or fret our souls at long-withheld replies, 

At glooms through which our visions cannot see, 
Ere sleep comes down to seal the weary eyes. 


LIFE 

A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in, 

A minute to smile and an hour to weep in, 

A pint of joy to a peck of trouble, 

And never a laugh but the moans come double; 

And that is life! 

A crust and a corner that love makes precious, 

With the smile to warm and the tears to refresh us; 
And joy seems sweeter when cares come after, 

And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter: 

And that is life! 


44 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


ODE TO ETHIOPIA 

O Mother Race! to thee I bring 
This pledge of faith unwavering, 

This tribute to thy glory. 

I know the pangs which thou didst feel, 

When Slavery crushed thee with its heel, 

With thy dear blood all gory. 

Sad days were those—ah, sad indeed! 

But through the land the fruitful seed 
Of better times was growing. 

The plant of freedom upward sprung, 

And spread its leaves so fresh and young— 
Its blossoms now are blowing. 

On every hand in this fair land, 

Proud Ethiope’s swarthy children stand 
Beside their fairer neighbor; 

The forests flee before their stroke, 

Their hammers ring, their forges smoke,— 
They stir in honest labor. 

They tread the fields where honor calls; 
Their voices sound through senate halls 
In majesty and power. 

To right they cling; the hymns they sing 
Up to the skies in beauty ring, 

And bolder grow each hour. 

Be proud, my Race, in mind and soul 
Thy name is writ on Glory’s scroll 
In characters of fire. 

High ’mid the clouds of Fame’s bright sky 
Thy banner’s blazoned folds now fly, 

And truth shall lift them higher. 



Ethiopia—Awakening 
By Meta Warrick Fuller 




46 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Thou hast the right to noble pride, 

Whose spotless robes were purified 
By blood’s severe baptism, 

Upon thy brow the cross was laid, 

And labor’s painful sweat-beads made 
A consecrating chrism. 

No other race, or white or black, 

When bound as thou wert, to the rack, 

So seldom stooped to grieving; 

No other race, when free again, 

Forgot the past and proved them men 
So noble in forgiving. 

Go on and up! Our souls and eyes 
Shall follow thy continuous rise; 

Our ears shall list thy story 
From bards who from thy root shall spring, 
And proudly tune their lyres to sing 
Of Ethiopia’ dory. 



WITH THE LARK 


Night is for sorrow and dawn is for joy, 

Chasing the troubles that fret and annoy; 

Darkness for sighing and daylight for song,— 

Cheery and chaste the strain, heartfelt and strong, 

All the night through, though I moan in the dark, 

I wake in the morning to sing with the lark. 

Deep in the midnight the rain whips the leaves, 
Softly and sadly the wood-spirit grieves. 

But when the first hue of dawn tints the skv, 

I shall shake out my wings like the birds and be dry; 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 47 

And though, like the rain-drops, I grieved through the 
dark, 

I shall wake in the morning to sing with the lark. 

On the high hills of heaven, some morning to be, 

Where the rain shall not grieve thro’ the leaves of the 
tree, 

There my heart will be glad for the pain I have known, 

For my hand will be clasped in the hand of mine own; 

And though life has been hard and death’s pathway 
been dark, 

I shall wake in the morning to sing with the lark. 


WE AY EAR THE MASK 

We wear the mask that grins and lies, 

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— 
This debt we pay to human guile; 

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, 
And mouth with myriad subtleties. 

Why should the w T orld be over-wise, 

In counting all our tears and sighs? 

Nay, let them only see us, while 
We wear the mask. 

We smile, but, 0 great Christ, our cries 
To thee from tortured souls arise. 

We sing, but oh, the clay is vile 
Beneath our feet, and long the mile; 

But let the world dream otherwise, 

We wear the mask! 



48 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


7. J. Mord Allen 

In the year of Dunbar’s death (1906), J. Mord 
Allen published his Rhymes, Tales, and Rhymed 
Tales. The contents are mainly in dialect, dialect 
that possesses, as it seems to me, every merit of 
that medium. There is great felicity of charac¬ 
terization, surprising turns of wit, quaint philos¬ 
ophy. In a later chapter I will give a specimen 
of Mr. Allen’s dialect verse, here two standard 
English poems. In both mediums his credentials 
are authentic, no whit less so than even Dunbar’s. 
Only the question arises why his muse became 
silent after this one utterance—for he was at the 
time but thirty-one years old. Perhaps poetry did 
not go with boiler-making, his occupation. Be¬ 
cause of the date of his one book I place him here 
with Dunbar, and there are yet other reasons. 

Mr. Allen affords but two standard English 
poems, the first and the last of his book. Such a 
fact marks him as of the elder day, though that 
day be less than a score of years agone. The con¬ 
cluding poem of his book has a sweet sadness that 
must appeal to every heart whose childhood is 
getting to be far away: 

COUNTING OUT 

“Eeny meeny miny mo.” 

Ah, how the sad-sv T eet Long Ago 
Enyouths us, as by magic spell, 

With that old rhyme. You know it well; 


THE HERITAGE OF SONG 


49 


For time was, once, when e’en your eyes 
Saw Heaven plainly, in the skies. 

Past twilight, when a brave moon glowed 
Just o’er the treetops, and the road 
Was full of romping children—say, 

What was the game we used to play? 

Yes! Hide-and-seek. And at the base, 

Who first must go and hide his face? 

Remember—standing in a row— 

“Eeny meeny minv mo”? 

“Eeny meeny miny mo.” 

How fare we children here below? 

Our moon is far from treetops now, 

And Heaven isn’t up, somehow. 

No more for sport play we “I spy”; 

Our “laying low” and “peeping high” 

Are now with consequences fraught; 

There’s black disgrace in being caught. 

But what’s to pay the pains we take? 

Let’s play the game for its own sake, 

And, ere ’tis time to homeward flit, 

Let’s get some pleasure out of it. 

For death will soon count down the row, 

“Eeny meeny miny mo.” 

Though of the elder day yet Allen is, like Dun¬ 
bar, a herald of the generation that is now articu¬ 
late. In this role of herald to a more self-assertive 
generation, a more aspiring and race-conscious 
one, he speaks with immense significance to us in 
this first poem of his book, which, as being 
prophetic of much we now see in the colored folk 


50 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


of America I permit to close this summary review 
of earlier Negro poetry: 

THE PSALM OF THE UPLIFT 

Still comes the Perfect Thing to man 
As came the olden gods, in dreams; 

And then the man—made artist—knows 
How real is the thing which seems. 

Then, tongue or brush or magic pen 
May win the world to loud acclaim, 

But he who wrought knows in his soul 
That, like as tinsel is to gold, 

His work is, to his aim. 

It’s there ahead to him—and you 
And me. I swear it isn’t far; 

Else, black Despair would cut us down 
In the land of hateful Things Which Are. 

But, just beyond our finger-tips, 

Things As They Should Be shame the weak, 

And hold the aching muscles tense 
Through th’ next moment of suspense 
Which triumph is to break. 

And shall we strive? The years to come, 

Till sunset of eternity, 

Are given to the fairest god, 

The God of Things As They Should Be. 

The ending? Nay, ’tis ours to do 
And dare and bear and not to flinch; 

To enter where is no retreat; 

To win one stride from sheer defeat; 

To die—but gain an inch. 


CHAPTER II 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE OF THE NEGRO 

I. A Glance at the Field 

Many are the forms of expression that the life 
of a developing people or group finds for itself— 
business and wealth, education and culture, polit¬ 
ical and social unrest and agitation, literature and 
art. It can scarcely happen that any people or 
group has a vital significance for other peoples 
or groups, or any real potency, until it begins to 
express itself in poetry. When, however, a race 
or a portion of our common race begins to embody 
its aspirations, its grievances, its animating spirit 
in song the world may well take notice. That race 
or portion of our common race has within it an 
unreckoned potency of good and evil—evil if the 
good be thwarted. 

It is not, then, to editorials and speeches and 
sermons, nor to petitions, protests, and resolu¬ 
tions, but to poems that the wise will turn in order 
to learn the temper and permanent bent of mind of 
a people. Witness the recent history of Ireland. 
Her literary renascence preceded her effective po¬ 
litical agitation. The political agitation which 
resulted in her independence was the work of 
poets. The real life of a people finds its only ade- 

51 


52 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


quate record in song. All of a people’s history 
that is permanently or profoundly significant is 
distilled into poetry. 

It is to the unknown poetry of a despised and 
rejected people that I call attention in these pages. 
One of this people’s poets sings: 

We have fashioned laughter 
Out of tears and pain, 

But the moment after— 

Pain and tears again. 

—Charles Bertram Johnson. 

And when he so sings we know there is one race 
above all others which these words describe. 
Another sings: 

I will suppose that fate is just, 

I will suppose that grief is wise, 

And I will tread what path I must 
To enter Paradise. 

—Joseph S. Cotter, Sr. 

And when he so sings we know out of what tribu¬ 
lations his resignation has been born. The reso¬ 
lution of despair cries out in the lines of another: 

My life were lost if I should keep 
A hope-forlorn and gloomy face, 

And brood upon my ills, and weep, 

And mourn the travail of my race. 

—Leslie Pinckney Hill. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 53 


Another singer, coming out of the Black Belt of 
the lower South, records the daily and life-long 
history of his people in these lines: 


IT’S ALL THROUGH LIFE 

A day of joy, a week of pain, 

A sunny day, a week of rain; 

A clay of peace, a year of strife; 

But cling to Him, it’s all through life. 

An hour of joy, a day of fears, 

An hour of smiles, a day of tears; 

An hour of gain, a day of strife, 

Press on, press on, it’s all through life. 

—Waverley Turner Carmichael. 

In the poetry which the Negro is producing 
to-day there is a challenge to the world. His 
race has been deeply stirred by recent events; its 
reaction has been mighty. The challenge, spoken 
by one, but for the race, the inarticulate millions 
as well as the cultured few, comes thus: 


TO AMERICA 

How would you have us—as we are, 
Or sinking Tieath the load we bear? 
Our eyes fixed forward on a star? 
Or gazing empty at despair ? 


54 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Rising or falling? Men or things? 

With dragging pace, or footsteps fleet? 

Strong, willing sinews in your wings? 

Or tightening chains about your feet? 

—James Weldon Johnson. 

With slight regard for smooth words another de¬ 
clares his grievances, that all may understand: 

Yes, I am lynched. Is it that I 
Must without judge or jury die? 

Though innocent, am I accursed 
To quench the mob’s blood-thirsty thirst? 

Yes, I am mocked. Pray tell me why! 

Did not my brothers freely die 
For you, and your Democracy— 

That each and all alike be free? 

—Raymond Garfield Dandridge. 

So runs the dominant note of this poetry. But it 
would be unjust to the race producing it to con¬ 
vey the idea that this is the only note. The harp 
of Ethiopia has many strings and the brothers of 
Memnon are many. Sometimes the note is one of 
simple beauty, like that of a wild rose blossoming 
by the wayside. No reader could tell what race 
produced such a lyric as the one following, but any 
reader responsive to the beauty of art and to the 
truth of passion would assert its excellence: 

I will hide my soul and its mighty love 
In the bosom of this rose, 

And its dispensing breath will take 
My love wherever it goes. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 55 


And perhaps she’ll pluck this very rose, 

And, quick as blushes start, 

Will breathe my hidden secret in 
Her unsuspecting heart. 

—George Marion McClellan. 

In a Negro magazine one may chance upon a 
sonnet that the best poet of our times might have 
signed and feared no loss to his reputation, nor 
would there be any mark of race in its lines. To 
candid judgment I submit the following, from 
Mrs. Alice Dunbar-Nelson: 


VIOLETS 

I had not thought of violets of late, 

The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet 

In wistful April days, when lovers mate 

And wander through the fields in raptures sweet. 

The thoughts of violets meant florists’ shops, 

And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine; 

And garish lights, and mincing little fops, 

And cabarets and songs, and deadening wine. 

So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed, 
I had forgot wide fields and clear brown streams; 

The perfect loveliness that God has made— 

Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams 
And now unwittingly, you’ve made me dream 
Of violets, and my soul’s forgotten gleam. 

It needs not that a poet write an epic to prove 
himself chosen of the muse. The winds of time 


56 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


may blow into oblivion all but five lines of an 
opus magnum , in which five lines alone was the 
laborious author a poet. Wise is the poet who 
writes but the five lines, as here: 

SUNSET 

Since Poets have told of sunset, 

What is left for me to tell ? 

I can only say that I saw the day 
Press crimson lips to the horizon gray, 

And kiss the earth farewell. 

—Mary Effie Lee. 

The theme may be as old as man and as common 
as humanity yet it can be made to be felt as poetic 
by one who has the magic gift, as here: 

LONELINESS 

I cannot make my thoughts stay home; 

I cannot close their door; 

And, oh, that I might shut them in, 

And they go out no more! 

For they go out, with wistful eyes, 

And search the whole world through; 

Just hoping, in their wandering, 

To catch a glimpse of you! 

—Winifred Virginia Jordan. 

One’s find may be in The Poet's Ingle of a news¬ 
paper, where an unknown name is attached to 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 57 


verses that have the charm which Longfellow 
found in the simple and heartfelt lays of the hum¬ 
bler poet. From such a poem, entitled To My 
Grandmother, by Mae Smith Johnson, I take two 
stanzas, the first two as beautiful as the theme 
evoked: 

You ’mind me of the winter’s eve 
When low the sinking sun 
Casts soft bright rays upon the snow 
And day, now almost done, 

In silence deep prepares to leave, 

And calmly waits the signal “Go.” 

Your eyes are faded vestal lights 
That once the hearth illumed, 

Where vestal virgins vigil kept, 

And budding virtue bloomed: 

Like stars that beam on summer nights, 

Your eyes, by joy and sorrow swept. 

Less beautiful, less original, but in another way 
not less appealing, are these stanzas, also signed 
by an unknown name and taken from the Christ¬ 
mas number of a newspaper. They are the last 
stanzas but one of a poem entitled The Child Is 
Found, by Charles H. Este: 

0 hearts that mourn and sorrow so, 

That doubt the power of God, 

An angel now is bending low— 

To comfort as you plod. 


58 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


He speaks with tones of whispering love, 

With feelings true and strong, 

And sings of sweetest joys above, 

For souls without a song. 

Pride of race, no less than grief for wrongs 
endured, is one of the notes of this living verse. 
Eulogies of the men and women who have lived 
heroically for their people, giving* vision, quicken¬ 
ing aspiration, opening roads of advance, find a 
place in every volume of verse and in the pages 
of newspapers. Few white persons perhaps have 
paused to reflect how noteworthy this traditionary 
store of heroic names really is and how potent it 
is with the people inheriting it. Both practical 
and poetic uses—if these two things are different 
—it has. One cannot foretell to what reflections 
upon life the eulogist will be led ere he concludes. 
From an ode to Booker T. Washington, by Roscoe 
Riley Dungee, I take a stanza, by way of illus¬ 
tration : 


Yet, virtue walks a path obscure, 

And honor struggles to endure, 

While arrogance and deeds impure 
Adorn the Hall of Fame. 

Still, power triumphs over right, 

And wrong is victor in the fight; 

Greed, graft, and knavery excite 
Vociferous acclaim. 

It has become evident to those who have se¬ 
riously studied the present-day life of the Negroes 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 59 


that there has been in these recent years a 
renascence of the Negro soul. Poetry, as these 
pages will show, is one of its modes of expres¬ 
sion. Other expressions there are, very significant 
ones, too, expressions which are material, tangible, 
expressible in figures. Not of this kind is poetry. 
Yet of all forms whereby the soul of a people 
expresses itself the most potent, the most effective, 
is poetry. The re-born soul of the Negro is fol¬ 
lowing the tradition of all races in all times by 
pouring itself into that form of words which em¬ 
bodies the most of passionate thought and feeling. 

Out of the very heart of a race of twelve million 
people amongst us comes this cry which a Negro 
poet of Virginia utters as 

A PRAYER OP THE RACE THAT GOD MADE 

BLACK 

We would be peaceful, Father—but, when we must, 
Help us to thunder hard the blow that’s just! 

We would be prayerful: Lord, when we have prayed, 
Let us arise courageous—unafraid! 

We would be manly—proving well our worth, 

Then would not cringe to any god on earth! 

We would be loving and forgiving, thus 
To love our neighbor as Thou lovest us! 

We would be faithful, loyal to the Right— 

Ne’er doubting that the Day will follow Night! 


60 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


We would be all that Thou hast meant for man, 

Up through the ages, since the world began! 

God! save us in Thy Heaven, where all is well! 

We come slow-struggling up the Hills of Hell! 

—Lucian B. Watkins. 

Too confidently, as we may learn, have we of 
the other race relied upon the Negro’s innate opti¬ 
mism to keep him a safe citizen and a long-suffer¬ 
ing servant. That optimism, that gaiety and 
buoyancy of spirit, if not indestructible in the 
African soul, is yet reducible to the vanishing 
point. There are signs of something quite differ¬ 
ent in the attitude of Negroes toward their white 
neighbors to-day. In their poetry this reputed 
optimism, where it exists, is found in union with 
a note of melancholy or of hitter complaint. A 
characteristic utterance of this mood I find in a 
poem entitled “The Optimist,” from which I will 
give one-third of its stanzas: 

Never mind, children, be patient awhile, 

And carry your load with a nod and a smile, 

For out of the hell and the hard of it all, 

Time is sure to bring sweetest honey—not gall. 

Out of the hell and the hard of it all, 

A bright star shall rise that never shall fall: 

A God-fearing race—proud, noble, and true, 
Giving good for the evil which they always knew. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 61 


So dry your wet pillow and lift your bowed head 
And show to the world that hope is not dead! 

Be patient! Wait! See what yet may befall, 

Out of the hell and the hard of it all. 

—Ethyl Lewis. 

But in dark days the Negro has ever had refuges 
and sources of strength for the want of which 
other races have been crushed. One of these 
refuges for them is the benignant breast of nature 
—the deep peace of the woods and the hills, the 
quiet soothing of pleasant-running water, the bene¬ 
diction of bright skies. A rarely-gifted woman, 
Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson, singing her own 
consolation, with a pathos that pierces the heart, 
has sung for thousands of the women of her race 
else dumb alike in grief and in joy, and in mingled 
grief and joy: 

PEACE 

I rest me deep within the wood, 

Drawn by its silent call; 

Far from the throbbing crowd of men 
On nature’s breast I fall. 

My couch is sweet with blossoms fair, 

A bed of fragrant dreams, 

And soft upon my ear there falls 
The lullaby of streams. 

The tumult of my heart is stilled, 

Within this sheltered spot, 

Deep in the bosom of the wood, 

Forgetting, and—forgot! 


62 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Death and the mysteries of life, the pain and 
the grief that flesh and soul are heirs to, the 
eternal problems that address themselves to all 
generations and races, produce in the soul of the 
Negro the same reactions as of old they produced 
in the soul of David or of Homer, or as, in our 
own day, in the soul of a Wordsworth or a Shelley. 
Of this we have a glimpse in the following lyric, 
from Walter Everette Hawkins : 

IN SPITE OP DEATH 

Curses come in every sound, 

And wars spread gloom and woe around. 

The cannon belch forth death and doom, 

But still the lilies wave and bloom. 

Man fills the earth with grief and wrong, 

But cannot hush the bluebird’s song. 

My stars are dancing on the sea, 

The waves fling kisses up at me. 

Each night my gladsome moon doth rise; 

A rainbow spans my evening skies; 

The robin’s song is full and fine; 

And roses lift their lips to mine. 

The jonquils ope their petals sweet, 

The poppies dance around my feet; 

In spite of winter and of death, 

The Spring is in the zephyr’s breath. 

This poetry but re-affirms the essential identity 
of human nature under black and white skins. 
But it will remind most of the white race of how 
ignorant they have been of that black race next 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 63 


door that is acquiring wealth and culture and is 
expressing in art and literature the spirit of an 
aspiring people—how ignorant of their real life, 
their very thoughts, their completely human joys 
and griefs. One of their poets was cognizant of 
this unhappy ignorance—the source of so much 
harshness of treatment—when he wrote: 

My people laugh and sing 
And dance to death— 

None imagining 

The heartbreak under breath. 

—Charles Bertram Johnson. 

Nothing weighs more heavily upon the soul of 
this race to-day than this everywhere self-betray¬ 
ing crass ignorance, made the more grievous to 
endure by the vain boast accompanying it, that 
“I know the Negro better than he knows himself. ” 
This poetry in every line of it is a convincing 
contradiction of this insulting arrogancy. Essen¬ 
tial identity, that is the message of these poets. 

This kinship of souls and essential oneness of 
human nature, which Shylock, speaking for a 
similarly oppressed and outrageously treated 
people, pressed home upon the Christian mer¬ 
chants of Venice, finds typical expression in the 
following lines: 

We travel a common road, Brother,— 

We walk and we talk much the same; 

We breathe the same sweet air of heaven— 

Strive alike for fortune and fame; 



64 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


We laugh when our hearts fill with gladness, 
We weep when we’re smothered in woe; 

We strive, we endure, we seek wisdom; 

We sin—and we reap what we sow. 

Yes, all who would know it can see that 
When everything’s put to the test, 

In spite of our color and features, 

The Negro’s the same as the rest. 

—Leon R. Harris. 


It is to be expected that, notwithstanding the 
Anglo-Saxon culture of the producers of this 
poetry, the white reader will yet demand therein 
what he regards as the African traits. Perhaps 
it will be crude, artless, repetitious songs like the 
Spirituals. The quality of the Spirituals is indeed 
not wanting in some of the most noteworthy con¬ 
temporary Negro verse. From Fenton Johnson’s 
three volumes of verse I could select many pieces 
that exhibit this quality united with disciplined 
art. For example, here is one: 


I PLAYED ON DAVID’S HARP 

(A Negro Spiritual) 

Last night I played on David’s harp, 
I played on little David’s harp 
The gospel tunes of Israel; 

And all the angels came to hear 
Me play those gospel tunes, 

As the Jordan rolled away. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 65 


The angels shouted all the night 
Their “Glory, Hallelujah” shout; 

Old Gabriel threw his trumpet down 
To hear the songs of Israel, 

On mighty David’s harp, 

As the Jordan rolled away. 

When death has closed my weary eyes 
I’ll play again on David’s harp 
The last great song in life’s brief book; 

And all you children born of God 
Can stop awhile and hear me play, 

As the Jordan rolls away. 

No less certain it is that many a reader will 
demand something more crude, more obscure, 
more mystical. Something, perhaps, at once ridic¬ 
ulous and wise—with big and strangely com¬ 
pounded words, ludicrously applied, yet striving 
at the expression of some peculiarly African idea. 
Of such verse I can produce no example. The 
nearest I can come to meeting such impossible de¬ 
mand is by submitting the following from William 
Edgar Bailey: 


THE SLUMP 

Mr. Self at the bat! 

Well, we’re all at the bat— 

For one thing or other, 

For this or for that. 

The ball may be hurled, in the form of this plea: 
“Will you please help the poor? 


66 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


God, have mercy on me! ’ ’ 

Mr. Self stops to think; 

But the ball cuts the plate— 

He’s aware that he slumped, 

Grasps the bat,—but too late. 

What you say, Mr. Ump ? 

Can it be? Yes, ’tis done! 

“Well, I’ve said what I’ve said! ,, 

Mr. Self, 

Strike One! 

Mr. Self’s face is grim. 

’Tis the critical test— 

For his heart, conscience-sick, 

Heaves stern at his breast. 

The Truth must be hurled, ’tis the law of the game; 
If in life or in death, 

If in falsehood or shame. 

Mr. Self, strike the ball— 

There’s a Tramp at your Gate! 

Mr. Self still amazed— 

And the ball cuts the plate. 

Mr. Self murmured not; 

The decision he knew, 

“Well, you’ve done that before.” 

Sighed the Ump. 

Strike Two! 

There’s the Beggar and Gate— 

But his silver and gold, 

Is amix with his blood; 

A part of his soul. 

The Nazarene stooped—as all Umpires will do, 

With His eye on a line, 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 67 


That his verdict be true— 

Just a shift of the Truth, 

Stern, the Nazarene tried, 

But he tho’t of the Cross, 

And the blood from His side. 

“Your decision is false; 

Oh, have mercy on me.” 

But a voice from the sky, 

Whispered low. 

Strike three. 

Of humorous verse there is very little produced 
by the Negro writers of these times. They take 
their vocation seriously. When their singing 
robes are on it is to the plaintive notes of 
the flute or the dolorous blasts of the trumpet 
they tune their songs. 

These voices, and others like them, have hut 
lately been lifted in song, they are still youthful 
voices, and they are but preluding the more perfect 
songs they are yet to sing. One voice that is now 
still, silenced lately in death, at the age of twenty- 
three years, has sung for them all what all feel: 


THE MULATTO TO HIS CRITICS 

Ashamed of my race? 

And of what race am I ? 

I am many in one. 

Through my veins there flows the blood 
Of Red Man, Black Man, Briton, Celt, and Scot, 
In warring clash and tumultuous riot. 


68 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


I welcome all, 

But love the blood of the kindly race 
That swarths my skin, crinkles my hair, 

And puts sweet music into my soul. 

—Joseph 8. Cotter, Jr . 

“Sweet music in the soul”—that is heaven’s 
kind gift to this people, music of sorrow and of 
faith; music, low and plaintive, of hope almost fail¬ 
ing; music, clear and strong, born of vision tri¬ 
umphant; music, alas, sometimes marred by the 
strident notes of hatred and revenge. Verily, 
poets learn in suffering what they teach in song. 

In concluding this preliminary survey it should 
be reiterated that, if one meets here but with the 
rhythms and forms, as he may think, which are 
familiar to him in the poetry of the white race, he 
should reflect that only in that poetry has the 
Negro had an opportunity to be educated. He 
has been educated away from his own heritage and 
his own endowments. The Negro’s native wisdom 
should lead him back to his natural founts of song. 
Our educational system should allow of and pro¬ 
vide for this. His own literature in his schools 
is a reasonable policy for the Negro. 

As regards the essential significance of this 
poetry, one of its makers, Miss Eva A. Jessye, has 
said in a beautiful way almost what I wish to say. 
Her poem shall therefore conclude this presenta¬ 
tion : 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 69 


THE SINGER 

Because his speech was blunt and manner plain 
Untaught in subtle phrases of the wise, 

Because the years of slavery and pain 
Ne’er dimmed the light of faith within his eyes; 
Because of ebon skin and humble pride, 

The world with hatred thrust the youth aside. 

But fragrance wafts from every trodden flower, 
And through our grief we rise to nobler things, 
Within the heart in sorrow’s darkest hour 
A well of sweetness there unbidden springs; 
Despised of men, discarded and alone— 

The world of nature claimed him as her own. 

She taught him truths that liberate the soul 
From bonds more galling than the slaver’s chain—- 
That manly natures, lily-wise, unfold 
Amid the mire of hatred void of stain ; 

Thus in his manhood, clean, superbly strong, 

To him was born the priceless gift of song. 

The glory of the sun, the hush of morn, 
Whisperings of tree-top faintly stirred, 

The desert silence, wilderness forlorn, 

Far ocean depths, the tender lilt of bird; 

Of hope, despair, he sang, his melody 
The endless theme of life’s brief symphony. 

And nations marveled at the minstrel lad, 

Who swayed emotions as his fancy led; 

With him they wept, were melancholy, sad; 

‘‘ ’Tis but a cunning jest of Fate, ’ ’ they said; 

They did not dream in selfish sphere apart 
That song is but the essence of the heart. 


70 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


11. Representatives of the Present Era 

I. The Cotters, Father and Son 
The Father 

On the Kentucky plantation where Stephen 
Collins Foster one June morning, when the mock¬ 
ing birds were sing¬ 
ing and “the darkies 
were gay, ’ ’ composed 
and his sister sang, 
‘ ‘ My Old Kentucky 
Home,” there was 
among those first de¬ 
lighted listeners who 
paused in their tasks 
to hear the immortal 
song at its birth a 
slave girl in whose 
soul were strange 
melodies of her own. 
Born of free people 
of color, she was 
bonded to the owner 
of this plantation, yet her soul was such as must 
be free. Faithful in her work, respectful and 
obedient, she was yet a dangerous character 
among slaves, being too spirited. Hence her 
master ordered her to leave, fearing she would 
demoralize discipline in the quarters. She de- 





THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 71 


manded to be taken away as she had been brought 
—in a wagon; and it was so done. It seems that 
one-half of her blood was African and the other 
half was divided between Indian and English, 
though it is impossible to be sure of the exact 
proportion. An account of her in those days by 
one who knew her reveals her as one of nature’s 
poets—a Phillis Wheatley of the wash-tubs 
“She was very fervent in her religious devotions” 
—so runs this account—‘ ‘ and a very hard worker. 
She would sometimes wash nearly all night and 
then have periods of prayer and exaltation. Then 
again during the day she would draw from her 
bosom a favorite book and pause to read over the 
wash-tub. She had a strong dramatic instinct and 
would frequently make up little plays of her own 
and represent each character vividly.” Of such 
mothers are seers and poets born. And so in this 
instance it proved to be. 

At the age of twenty, while yet a slave, she was 
married, under the common law—though marriage 
it was not called—to a Scotch-Irishman, a prom¬ 
inent citizen of Louisville, her employer at the 
time, who was distinguished by a notably hand¬ 
some physique and a great fondness for books. 
Of this union was born, at Bardstown, a son, 
Joseph, so named for the dreamer of biblical 
story. 

The vision-seeing slave mother, her mind run¬ 
ning on the bondage of her people, named her son 
Joseph in the hope of his becoming great in the 



72 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


service of his people, like the Hebrew Joseph. She 
lived to see her hope fulfilled. The boy’s earliest 
education was in song and story invented and sung 
or told by his mother. He got a few terms of 
school, reaching the third grade. At ten years 
of age he went to work in a brickyard of Louis¬ 
ville to help support his mother. Even there the 
faculty that afterwards distinguished him appears 
in action, to his relief in time of trouble. Bigger 
boys, white and black, working in the same yard, 
hazed and harried him. Fighting to victory was 
out of the question, against such odds. Brains 
won where brawn was wanting. He observed that 
the men at their noon rest-hour, the time of his 
distress, told stories and laughed. He couldn’t 
join them, but he tried story-telling in the boy 
group. It worked. The men, hearing the laughter, 
came over and joined them. The persecuted boy 
became the entertainer of both groups. He had 
won mastery by wit, the proudest mastery in the 
world. 

Then, until he was twenty-two years of age, he 
was a teamster on the levee. At this time the 
desire for an education mastered him and he en¬ 
tered a night school—the primary grade. Hard 
toil and the struggle to get on had not killed his 
soul but had wiped out his acquisitions of book- 
knowledge. In two terms he was qualified to teach. 
He is now the principal of the Samuel Coleridge- 
Taylor High School in Louisville, the author of 
several books, a maker of songs and teller of 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 73 


stories, and a man upright in conduct and wise in 
counsel. 

It was at Bardstown, February 2, 1861, that 
Joseph Seamon Cotter was born. Let Bardstown 
be put on the literary map of America, not because 
Stephen Collins Foster wrote “My Old Kentucky 
Home ’ ’ there, but because one was born there the 
latchet of whose poetic shoes he was not worthy to 
unloose. “A poet, a bard, to he born in Bards¬ 
town—how odd, and how appropriate!” one 
exclaims. And bard seems exactly the right ap¬ 
pellation for this song-maker and story-man. But 
it is not altogether so. In character bardlike, but 
not in appearance. Bards have long, unkempt, 
white hair, which mingles with beards that rest on 
their bosoms. Cotter’s square-cut chin is clean¬ 
shaven, and his large brain-dome shows like a 
harvest moon. But he makes poems and invents 
and discovers stories, and, hard-like, recites or 
relates them to whatever audience may call for 
them—in schools, in churches, at firesides. Minus 
the hairy habiliments he is a bard. 

Some of Cotter’s stories come out of Africa 
and are “different,” as the word goes. Some are 
“current among the colored folks of Louisville.” 
These, too, are different. Some are tragedies and 
some are comedies and some are tragi-comedies 
of everyday life among the Negroes. I will give 
one entire tale here, selecting this particular one 
because of its brevity, not its pre-eminence: 


74 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


THE BOY AND THE IDEAL 

Once upon a time a Mule, a Hog, a Snake, and a Boy 
met. Said the Mule: “I eat and labor that I may 
grow strong in the heels. It is fine to have heels so 
gifted. My heels make people cultivate distance. 7 7 

Said the Hog: “I eat and labor that I may grow 
strong in the snout. It is fine to have a fine snout. I 
keep people watching for my snout. 77 

“No exchanging heels for snouts, 77 broke in the Mule. 

“No, 77 answered the Hog; “snouts are naturally above 
heels. 7 7 

Said the Snake: “I eat to live, and live to cultivate 
my sting. The way people shun me shows my greatness. 
Beget stings, comrades, and stings will beget glory. 7 7 

Said the Boy: ‘ ‘ There is a star in my life like unto 
a star in the sky. I eat and labor that I may think 
aright and feel aright. These rounds will conduct me 
to my star. Oh, inviting star! 7 7 

‘ ‘ I am not so certain of that, 7 7 said the Mule. 11 1 have 
noticed your kind and ever see some of myself in them. 
Your star is in the distance. 77 

The Boy answered by smelling a flower and listening 
to the song of a bird. The Mule looked at him and said: 
“He is all tenderness and care. The true and the beau¬ 
tiful have robbed me of a kinsman. His star is near. 77 

Said the Bov: “I approach my star. 77 

“I am not so certain of that, 77 interrupted the Hog. 
“I have noticed your kind and I ever see some of 
myself in them. Your star is a delusion. 77 

The Boy answered by painting the flower and setting 
the notes of the bird’s song to music. 

The Hog looked at the boy and said: 11 His soul is 

attuned by nature. The meddler in him is slain. 77 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 75 


“I can all but touch my star,” cried the Boy. 

“I am not so certain of that,” remarked the Snake. 
“I have watched your kind and ever see some of myself 
in them. Stings are nearer than stars.” 

The Boy answered by meditating upon the picture and 
music. The Snake departed, saying that stings and stars 
cannot keep company. 

The Boy journeyed on, ever led by the star. Some 
distance away the Mule was bemoaning the presence of 
his heels and trying to rid himself of them by kicking 
a tree. The Hog was dividing his time between looking 
into a brook and rubbing his snout on a rock to shorten 
it. The Snake lay dead of its own bite. The Boy jour¬ 
neyed on, led by an ever inviting star. 

(Negro Tales.—Joseph S. Cotter, The Cosmopolitan 
Press, New York, 1912.) 

l r es—Uncle Remus, in reality—and not exactly 
so. No copy. Not every like is the same. An 
Uncle Remus with culture and conscious art, yet 
unspoilt, the native qualities strong. And how 
poetic those qualities are! 

Well might one expect a teacher, if he writes 
verse, to write didactic verse. But I think you 
will pronounce him to be an extraordinary teacher 
and verse-writer who writes as Mr. Cotter does, 

t 

for example, in: 

THE THRESHING FLOOR 

Thrice blessed he who wields the flail 
Upon this century’s threshing floor; 

A few slight strokes by him avail 
More than a hundred would of yore. 


76 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Around him lies the ripened grain 
From every land and every age; 

The weakest thresher should attain 
Unto the wisdom of the sage. 

Ambitious youth, this is the wealth 
The ages have bequeathed to thee. 

Thou canst not take thy share by stealth 
Nor by mere ingenuity. 

Thy better self must spur thee on 
To win what time has made thy own; 

No hand but labor’s yet has drawn 
The sweets that labor’s hand has sown. 

In verse presuming to be lyrical we hearken for 
the lyrical cry. That cry is in his lines, melodi¬ 
ously uttered, and poignant. For example: 

The flowers take the tears 
Of the weeping night 
And give them to the sun 
For the day’s delight. 

My passion takes the joys 
Of the laughing day 
And melts them into tears 
For my heart’s decay. 

The sweet sadness of those stanzas lingers with 
one. A stanza from a poem entitled “ The Nation’s 
Neglected Child” may help us to their secret: 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 77 


I am not thy pampered steed, 

I am not thy welcome dog; 

I am of a lower breed 

Even than thy Berkshire hog; 

I am thy neglected child— 

Make me grow, but keep me wild. 

In many of Cotter’s verses there is a sonorous 
flow which is evidence of poetic power made cre¬ 
ative by passion. Didacticism and philosophy do 
not destroy the lyrical quality. In The Book's 
Creed this teacher-poet makes an appeal to his 
generation to be as much alive and as creative as 
the creed makers of other days were. The slaves 
of the letter, the mummers of mere formulas, he 
thus addresses: 

You are dead to all the Then, 

You are dead to all the Now, 

If you hold that former men 

Wore the garland for your brow. 

Time and tide were theirs to brave, 

Time and tide are yours to stem. 

Bow not o’er their open grave 
Till you drop your diadem. 

Honor all who strove and wrought, 

Even to their tears and groans; 

But slay not your honest thought 

Through your reverence for their bones. 

Cotter is a wizard at rhyming. His “Sequel to 
the Pied Piper of Hamelin” surpasses the original 


78 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


—Browning’s—in technique—that is, in rushing 
rhythms and ingenious rhymes. It is an incredible 
success, with no hint of a tour-de-force perform¬ 
ance. Its content, too, is worthy of the metrical 
achievement. ' I will lay the proof before the com¬ 
petent reader in an extract or two from this 
remarkable accomplishment: 

The last sweet notes the piper blew 

Were heard by the people far and wide; 

And one by one and two by two 
They flocked to the mountain-side. 

Some came, of course, intensely sad, 

And some came looking fiercely mad, 

And some came singing solemn hymns,. 

And some came showing shapely limbs, 

And some came bearing the tops of yews, 

And some came wearing wooden shoes, 

And some came saying what they would do, 

And some came praying (and loudly too), 

And all for what? Can you not infer? 

A-searching and lurching for the Pied Piper, 

And the boys and girls he had taken away. 

And all were ready now to pay 
Any amount that he should say. 

So begins the Sequel. Another passage, near the 
end, will indicate the trend of the story: 

The years passed by, as years will do, . 

When trouble is the master, 

And always strives to bring to view 
A new and worse disaster; 



THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 79 


And sorrow, like a sorcerer, 

Spread out her melancholy pall, 

So that its folds enveloped all, 

And each became her worshipper. 

And not a single child was born 
Through all the years thereafter; 

If words sprang from the lips of scorn 
None came from those of laughter. 

Finally, the inhabitants of Hamelin are passing 1 
through death’s portal, and when all had de¬ 
parted : 

—a message went to Rat-land 

-V- ^ 

w tp w 

And lo! a race of rats was at hand 

###### 

They swarmed into the highest towers, 

And loitered in the fairest bowers, 

And sat down where the mayor sat, 

And also in his Sunday hat; 

And gnawed revengefully thereat. 

With rats for mayor and rats for people, 

With rats in the cellar and rats in the steeple, 
With rats without and rats within, 

Stood poor, deserted Hamelin. 

Like Dunbar, Cotter is a satirist of his people 
—or certain types of his people—a gentle, humor¬ 
ous, affectionate satirist. His medium for satire 
is dialect, inevitably. Sententious wisdom, irra¬ 
diated with humor, appears in these pieces in 


80 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


homely garb. In standard English, without satire 
or humor that wisdom thus appears: 

What deeds have sprung from plow and pick! 
What bank-rolls from tomatoes! 

No dainty crop of rhetoric 
Can match one of potatoes. 

The gospel of work has been set forth by our 
poet in a four-act poetic drama entitled Caleb, the 
Degenerate. All the characters are Negroes. 
The form is blank verse—blank verse of a very 
high order, too. The language, like Shakespeare’s 
—though Browning rather than Shakespeare is 
suggested—is always that of a poet. The wisdom 
is that of a man who has observed closely and 
pondered deeply. Idealistic, philosophical, poeti¬ 
cal—such it is. It bears witness to no ordinary 
dramatic ability. 

“Best bard, because the wisest,” says our Isra- 
fel. Verily. “Sage” you may call this man as 
well as “bard.” The proof is in poems and tales, 
apologues and apothegms. Joseph Seam on Cotter 
is now sixty years of age. Yet the best of him, 
according to good omens, is yet to be given forth, 
in song, story, precept, and drama. His nature is 
opulent—the cultivation began late and the har¬ 
vest grows richer. 

The chief event of his life, I doubt not, remains 
to be mentioned—a very sad one. This was the 
ntimely death of his poet-son, Joseph S. Cotter, 
r. Born of this sorrow was the following lyric: 




THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 81 


Oh, my way and thy way, 

And life’s joy and wonder, 

And thy day and my day 
Are cloven asunder. 

Oh, my trust and thy trust, 

And fair April weather, 

And thy dust and my dust 
Shall mingle together. 

The Son 

Dead at the age 
of twenty-three years, 

Joseph S. Cotter, Jr., 
left behind a thin vol¬ 
ume of lyrics, entitled 

The Band of Gideon, 
and about twenty 
sonnets of an unfin¬ 
ished sequence, and 
a little book of one- 
act plays. I will 
presently place the 
remarkable title- 
poem of his book of 
lyrics before the 
reader, but first I 
will give two minor pieces, without comment: 

RAIN MUSIC 

On the dusty earth-drum 
. Beats the falling rain; 

Now a whispered murmur, 

Now a louder strain. 



Joseph S. Cotter, Jr. 







82 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Slender silvery drumsticks, 

On the ancient drum, 

Beat the mellow music, 

Bidding life to come. 

Chords of earth awakened, 

Notes of greening spring, 

Rise and fall triumphant 
Over everything. 

Slender silvery drumsticks 
Beat the long tattoo— 

God the Great Musician 
Calling life anew. 

COMPENSATION 

I plucked a rose from out a bower fair, 

That overhung my garden seat; 

And wondered I if, e’er before, bloomed there 
A rose so sweet. 

Enwrapt in beauty I scarce felt the thorn 
That pricked me as I pulled the bud; 

Till I beheld the rose, that summer morn, 
Stained with my blood. 

I sang a song that thrilled the evening air, 
With beauty somewhat kin to love, 

And all men knew that lyric song so rare 
Came from above. 

And men rejoiced to hear the golden strain; 
But no man knew the price I paid, 

Nor cared that out of my soul’s deathless pain 
The song was made. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 83 


The lyrical faculty is evinced by such poems. 
But others singers of our day might have produced 
them—singers of the white race. Not so, I think, 
of “The Band of Gideon.” Upon that poem is 
the stamp, not of genius only, but of Negro genius. 
In it is re-incarnated, by a cultured, creative mind, 
the very spirit of the old plantation songs and 
sermons. The reader who has in his possession 
that background will respond to the unique and 
powerful appeal of this poem. 


THE BAND OF GIDEON 

The band of Gideon roam the sky, 

The howling wind is their war-cry, 

The thunder’s roll is their trumpet’s peal 
And the lightning’s flash their vengeful steel. 
Each black cloud 
Is a fiery steed. 

And they cry aloud 
With each strong deed, 

“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.” 

And men below rear temples high 
And mock their God with reasons why, 

And live in arrogance, sin, and shame, 

And rape their souls for the world’s good name. 
Each black cloud 
Is a fiery steed. 

And they cry aloud 
With each strong deed, 

“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.” 


84 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


The band of Gideon roam the sky 
And view the earth with baleful eve; 

In holy wrath they scourge the land 

With earthquake, storm, and burning brand. 

Each black cloud 
Is a fiery steed. 

And they cry aloud 
With each strong deed, 

“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.” 

The lightnings flash and the thunders roll, 

And “Lord have mercy on my soul,” 

Cry men as they fall on the stricken sod, 

In agony searching for their God. 

Each black cloud 
Is a fiery steed. 

And thev crv aloud 

•/ «. 

With each strong deed, 

“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.” 

And men repent and then forget 
That heavenly wrath they ever met. 

The band of Gideon yet will come 

And strike their tongues of blasphemy dumb. 

Each black cloud 
Is a fiery steed. 

And they cry aloud 
With each strong deed, 

“The Sword of the Lord and Gideon.” 

The reader, I predict, will be drawn again and 
again to this mysterious poem. It will continue to 
haunt his imagination, and tease his thought. The 
stamp of the African mind is upon it. Closely 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 85 


allied, on the one hand by its august refrain to the 
Spirituals, on the other hand it touches the most 
refined and perfected art; such, for example, as 
Rossetti’s ballads or Vachel Lindsay’s cantatas. 
It can scarcely be wondered at that the people of 
his race should call this untimely dead singer their 
Negro Lycidas. 

II. James David Corrothers 

THE DREAM AND THE SONG 

So oft our hearts, beloved lute, 

In blossomy haunts of song are mute; 

So long we pore, ’mid murmurings dull, 

O’er loveliness unutterable; 

So vain is all our passion strong! 

The dream is lovelier than the song. 

The rose thought, touched by words, doth turn 
Wan ashes. Still, from memory’s urn, 

The lingering blossoms tenderly 
Refute our wilding minstrelsy. 

Alas! we work but beauty’s wrong! 

The dream is lovelier than the song. 

Yearned Shelley o’er the golden flame? 

Left Keats, for beauty’s lure, a name 
But ‘ ‘ writ in water ” ? Woe is me! 

To grieve o’er floral faery. 

My Phasian doves are flown so long— 

The dream is lovelier than the song! 

Ah, though we build a bower of dawn, 

The golden-winged bird is gone, 


86 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


And morn may gild, through shimmering leaves, 

Only the swallow-twittering eaves. 

What art may house or gold prolong 
A dream far lovelier than a song? 

The lilting witchery, the unrest 
Of winged dreams, is in our breast; 

But ever dear Fulfilment’s eyes 
Gaze otherward. The long-sought prize, 

My lute, must to the gods belong. 

The dream is lovelier than the song. 

Cherokee-Indian, Scotch-Irish, French, and 
African blood in James David Corrothers, the 

author of this poem, 
makes his complex¬ 
ion, he supposed, 
‘ 1 about that of the 
original man. ’ ’ The 
reader has already 
had, at the begin¬ 
ning of the discussion 
of Dunbar, a sonnet 
from this poet. The 
sonnet, the above 
poem, and the others 
given here were pub¬ 
lished in The Century 
Magazine. Not un¬ 
worthy of The Cen¬ 
tury's standards, the reader must say. 

James David Corrothers was born in Michigan, 
July 2, 1869. His mother in giving him life sur- 



J. D. Corrothers 







THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 87 


rendered lier own. His father never cared for 
him. Sheltered for a few years by maternal rel¬ 
atives, he was out on the world in early boyhood, 
dependent on his own resources. Soon, because 
he was a Negro, he was a wanderer for work 
through several states. Often without money, 
friends, or food, he slept out of doors, sometimes 
in zero weather. At nineteen years of age, as 
before stated, he was shining shoes in a Chicago 
barber shop. There he was “ discovered. M 

Henry H. Lloyd was having his boots shined 
by young Corrothers when the two fell into book 
talk. The distinguished writer was astonished at 
the knowledge possessed by one engaged in such 
a menial occupation. Out of this circumstance, it 
seems, the Negro boot-black became a student in 
Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois. 
By mowing lawns and doing whatever odd jobs 
he could find he worked his way for three years in 
the university. Then, by the kindness of Frances 
E. Willard, he had a year in Bennett College, 
Greensboro, North Carolina. Prior to his entrance 
at Northwestern there had been but one brief 
opportunity in his life for attending school. But 
the wandering youth, battling against the adverse 
fates, or, concretely stated, the disadvantage of 
being a Negro, had managed somehow to make 
great books his companions. Hence, he had en¬ 
tered what Carlyle calls “the true modern uni¬ 
versity. ” Hence, his literary conversation with 
Mr. Lloyd. 


88 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Out of those early struggles, and perhaps also 
out of later hitter experiences, came such poems 
as the following: 

AT THE CLOSED GATE OF JUSTICE 

To be a Negro in a day like this 
Demands forgiveness. Bruised with blow on blow, 
Betrayed, like him wdiose woe-dimmed eyes gave bliss, 
Still must one succor those who brought one low, 

To be a Negro in a day like this. 

To be a Negro in a day like this 

Demands rare patience—patience that can wait 

In utter darkness. ’Tis the path to miss, 

And knock, unheeded, at an iron gate, 

To be a Negro in a day like this. 

To be a Negro in a day like this 
Demands strange loyalty. We serve a flag 
Which is to us white freedom’s emphasis. 

Ah ! one must love when truth and justice lag, 

To be a Negro in a day like this. 

To be a Negro in a day like this— 

Alas! Lord God, what evil have we done ? 

Still shines the gate, all gold and amethyst' 

But I pass by, the glorious goal unwon, 

“Merely a Negro”—in a day like this! 

Even though his face he “red like Adam’s,” 
and even though his art be noble like that of the 
masters of song, yet had Mr. Corrothers, even in 
the republic of letters, felt the handicap of his 
complexion, as this sonnet bears witness: 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 89 


THE NEGRO SINGER 

O’er all my song the image of a face 
Lieth, like shadow on the wild, sweet flowers. 

The dream, the ecstasy that prompts my powers, 

The golden lyre’s delights, bring little grace 
To bless the singer of a lowly race. 

Long hath this mocked me: aye, in marvelons hours, 
When Ilera’s gardens gleamed, or Cynthia’s bowers, 
Or Hope’s red pylons, in their far, hushed place! 
But I shall dig me deeper to the gold; 

Fetch water, dripping, over desert miles 
From clear Nyanzas and mysterious Niles 
Of love; and sing, nor one kind act withhold. 

So shall men know me, and remember long, 

Nor my dark face dishonor any song. 

Death lias silenced the muse of this dark singer, 
one of the best hitherto. That his endowment was 
uncommon and that his achievement, as evinced by 
these poems, is one of distinction, to use Mr. 
Howells’s word, every reader equipped to judge 
of poetry must admit. 


III. A Group of Singing Johnsons 

In all rosters the name Johnson claims liberal 
space. Five verse-smiths with that cognomen will 
be presented in this book, and there is a sixth. 
These many Johnsons are no further related to 
one another, so far as I know, than that they are 
all Adam’s offspring, and poets. Only three of 


90 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


them will be presented in this chapter: James 
Weldon Johnson, of Florida, author of Fifty 
Years and Other Poems (1917); Charles Bertram 
Johnson, of Missouri, author of Songs of My 
People (1918); Fenton Johnson, of Chicago, 
author of A Little Breaming (1914); Visions of 
the Bush (1915), and Songs of the Soil (1916). 
The fourth and fifth are women, and will 
find a place in another group; the sixth is Adol¬ 
phus Johnson, author of The Silver Chord, Phila¬ 
delphia, 1915. The three mentioned above will be 
treated in the order in which they have been 
named. 


1. James Weldon Johnson 

Now of New York, but born in Florida and 
reared in the South, James Weldon Johnson is a 
man of various abilities, accomplishments, and 
activities. He was graduated with the degrees of 
A. B. and A. M. from Atlanta University and 
later studied for three years in Columbia Univer- 
sity. First a school-principal, then a practitioner 
of the law, he followed at last the strongest pro¬ 
pensity and turned author. His literary work 
includes light operas, for which his brother, 
J. Rosamond Johnson, composed the music, and 
a novel entitled The Autobiography of an Ex- 
Colored Man. Having been United States consul 
in two Latin-American countries, he is a master 
of Spanish and has made translations of Spanish 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 


91 


plays and poems. The English libretto of Goyes- 
cas was made by him for the Metropolitan Opera 
Company in 1915. 

He is also one of 
the ablest editorial 
writers in the coun¬ 
try. In the Public 
Ledger’s contest of 
1916 he won the third 
prize. His editorials 
are widely syndicated 
in the Negro weekly 
press. Poems of his 
have appeared in 
The Century, The 
Crisis, and The Inde¬ 
pendent. 

Professor Brander 
Matthews in his In¬ 
troduction to Fifty 
Years and Other Poems speaks of “the superb 
and soaring stanzas’’ of the title-poem and de¬ 
scribes it as “a poem sonorous in its diction, 
vigorous in its workmanship, elevated in its 
imagination, and sincere in its emotion.” Doubt¬ 
less this will seem like the language of exag¬ 
geration. The sceptic, however, must withhold 
judgment until he has read the poem, too long for 
presentation here. Mr. Johnson’s poetical qual¬ 
ities can be represented in this place only by 
briefer though inferior productions. A poem of 



James Weldon Johnson 




92 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


special significance, and characterized by the qual¬ 
ities noted by Professor Matthews in “ Fifty 
Years,” is the following: 


0 SOUTHLAND! 

0 Southland ! 0 Southland! 

Have you not heard the call, 

The trumpet blown, the word made known 
To the nations, one and all? 

The watchword, the hope-word, 

Salvation’s present plan? 

A gospel new, for all—for you: 

Man shall be saved by man. 

O Southland! 0 Southland! 

Do you not hear to-day 
The mighty beat of onward feet, 

And know you not their way? 

’Tis forward, ’tis upward, 

On to the fair white arch 
Of Freedom’s dome, and there is room 
For each man who would march. 

O Southland, fair Southland! 

Then why do you still cling 
To an idle age and a musty page, 

To a dead and useless thing? 

’Tis springtime! ’Tis work-time! 

The world is young again! 

And God’s above, and God is love, 

And men are only men. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 93 


O Southland ! my Southland ! 

O birthland! do not shirk 
The toilsome task, nor respite ask, 

But gird you for the work. 

Remember, remember 

That weakness stalks in pride; 

That he is strong who helps along 
The faint one at his side. 

For pure lyric beauty and exquisite pathos, 
Wordsworthian in both respects, but no hint of 
imitation, the following stanzas may be set, with¬ 
out disadvantage to them, by the side of any in our 
literature: 

The glorv of the dav was in her face. 

The beauty of the night was in her eyes, 

And over all her loveliness, the grace 
Of Morning blushing in the early skies. 

And in her voice, the calling of the dove; 

Like music of a sweet, melodious part. 

And in her smile, the breaking light of love; 

And all the gentle virtues in her heart. 

And now the glorious day, the beauteous night, 

The birds that signal to their mates at dawn, 

To my dull ears, to my tear-blinded sight 
Are one with all the dead, since she is gone. 

Yet one other poem of this fine singer’s I will 
give, selecting from not a few that press for the 


94 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


restricted space. The easy flow of the verse a: id 
the ready rhyme will be remarked—and that 
supreme quality of good lyric poetry, austere 
simplicity. 


THE YOUNG WARRIOR 

Mother, shed no mournful tears, 

But gird me on my sword; 

And give no utterance to thy fears, 

But bless me with thy word. 

The lines are drawn ! The fight is on [ 
A cause is to be won! 

Mother, look not so white and wan; 
Give Godspeed to thy son. 

Now let thine eyes my way pursue 
Where’er my footsteps fare; 

And when they lead beyond thy view. 
Send after me a prayer. 

But pray not to defend from harm, 
Nor danger to dispel; 

Pray, rather, that with steadfast arm 
I fight the battle well. 

Pray, mother of mine, that I always keep 
My heart and purpose strong, 

My sword unsullied and ready to leap 
Unsheathed against the wrong. 



THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 95 


Arduous labors in other fields than poetry 
threaten to silence Mr. Johnson’s muse, and that 
is to be regretted. 

2. Charles Bertram Johnson 

School-teacher, preacher, poet—this is Charles 
Bertram Johnson of Missouri. And in Missouri 
there is no voice more 
tuneful, no artistry 
in song any finer, 
than his. Nor in so 
bold an assertion am 
I forgetting the sweet 
voice and exquisite 
artistry of Sarah 
Teasdale. Mr. John¬ 
son ’s art is not unlike 
hers in all that makes 
hers most charming. 

Only there is not so 
much of his that at¬ 
tains to perfection of 
form. On pages 52 
and 63 were given two of his quatrain poems. 
These were of his people. But a lyric poet should 
sing himself. That is of the essence of lyric poetry. 
In so singing, however, the poet reveals not only 
his individual life, but that of his race to the view 
of the world. Another quatrain poem, personal 
in form, may be accepted as of racial inter¬ 
pretation : 






96 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


SOUL AND STAR 

So oft from out the verge afar 

The dear dreams throng and throng, 
Sometimes I think my soul a star, 

And life a pulsed song. 

Born at Callao, Missouri, October 5, 1880, of a 
Kentucky mother and a Virginia father, Charles 
Bertram Johnson attended a one-room school 
“across the railroad track,” where—who can ex¬ 
plain this?—he was “Introduced to Bacon, Shake¬ 
speare, and the art of rhyming. ’ ’ It reads like an 
old story. Some freak of a schoolmaster whose 
head is tilled with “useless” lore—poetry, tales, 
and “such stuff”—nurturing a child of genius 
into song. But it was Johnson’s mother who was 
the great influence in his life. She was an “adept 
at rhyming ’ ’ and ‘ 4 she initiated me into the world 
of color and melody”—so writes our poet. It is 
always the mother. Then, by chance—but how 
marvelously chance comes to the aid of the pre¬ 
destined !—by chance, he learns of Dunbar and his 
poetry. The ambition to be a poet of his people 
like Dunbar possesses him. He knows the path 
to that goal is education. He therefore makes 
his way to a little college at Macon, Missouri, from 
which, after five years, he is graduated—without 
having received any help in the art of poetry, how¬ 
ever. Two terms at a summer school and special 
instruction by correspondence seem to have aided 



THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 97 


him here, or to have induced the belief that he had 
been aided. For twenty-odd years he followed 
the profession of teaching. For ten years of that 
period he also preached. The ministry now claims 
his entire energies, and the muse knocks less and 
less frequently at his door. 

Yet he still sings. In a recent number of The 
Crisis I find a poem of his that in suggesting a 
life of toil growing to a peaceful close is tilled 
with soothing melody: 


OLD FRIENDS 

Sit here before my grate, 

Until it’s ashen gray, 

Or till the night grows late, 

And talk the time away. 

I cannot think to sleep, 

And miss your golden speech, 
My bed of dreams will keep— 
You here within my reach. 

I have so much to say, 

The time is short at best, 

A bit of toil and play, 

And after that comes rest. 

But you and I know now 
The wisdom of the soul, 

The years that seamed the brow 
Have made our visions whole. 


98 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Sit here before my grate 
Until the ash is cold; 

The things you say of late 
Are fine as shriven gold. 

Even though one be born to sing, if circum¬ 
stances have made him a preacher he may be 
expected to moralize his song. Whether we shall 
be reconciled to this will depend on the art with 
which it is done. If the moral idea be a sweet 
human one, and if the verse still be melifluous, we 
will submit, and our delight will be twofold— 
ethical and esthetical. We will put our preacher- 
poet of Missouri to the test: 


SO MUCH 

So much of love I need, 

And tender passioned care, 

Of human fault and greed 
To make me unaware: 

So much of love I owe, 

That, ere my life be done, 

How shall I keep His will 
To owe not any one? 

Truth is, Mr. Johnson is not given to preaching 
in verse any more than other poets. His sole aim 
is beauty. He assures me it is truth. Instead 
of admitting disagreement I only assert that, 
being a poet, he must find all truth beautiful. It 



THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 99 


is only for relative thinking we need the three 
terms, truth, goodness, and beauty. 

I will conclude this presentation of the Missouri 
singer with a lyrical sermonette: 

A RAIN SONG 

Chill the rain falls, chill! 

Dull gray the world; the vale 
Rain-swept; wind-swept the hill; 

“But gloom and doubt prevail,” 

My heart breaks forth to say. 

Ere thus its sorrow-note, 

“Cheer up! Cheer up, to-day! 

To-morrow is to be!” 

Babbled from a joyous throat, 

A robin’s in a mist-gray tree. 

Then off to keep a tryst— 

He preened his drabbled cloak— 

Doughty little optimist!— 

As if in answer, broke 

The sunlight through that oak. 

3. Fenton Johnson 

Dreams and visions—such are the treasures of 
suffering loyal hearts: dreams, visions, and song. 
Happy even in their sorrows the people to whom 
God has given poets to he their spokesmen to the 
world. Else their hearts should stifle with woe. 
As the prophet was of old so in these times the 


100 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 

poet. As a prophet speaks Fenton Johnson, his 
heart yearning toward the black folk of our land: 

THESE ARE MY PEOPLE 

These are my people, I have built for them 
A castle in the cloister of my heart; 

And I shall fight that they may dwell therein. 
The God that gave Sojourner tongue of fire 
Has made with me a righteous covenant 
That these, my brothers of the dusk, shall rise 
To Sinai and thence in purple walk 
A newer Canaan, vineyards of the West. 

The rods that chasten us shall break as straw 
And fire consume the godless in the South; 

The hand that struck the helpless of my race 
Shall wither as a leaf in drear November, 

And liberty, the nectar God has blest, 

Shall flow as free as wine in Babylon. 

O God of Covenants, forget us not! 


Fenton Johnson seems to be more deeply rooted 
in the song-traditions of his people than are most 
of his fellow-poets. To him the classic Spirituals 
afford inspiration and pattern. AVhoever is 
familiar with those “canticles of love and woe” 
will recognize their influence throughout Mr. John¬ 
son’s three volumes of song. I shall make no at¬ 
tempt here to illustrate this truth but shall rather 
select a piece or two that will represent the poet’s 
general qualities. Other poems more typical of 
him as a melodist could be found but these have 
special traits that commend them for this place. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 101 


THE PLAINT OF THE FACTORY CHILD 

Mother, must I work all clay? 

All the day? Ay, all the day? 

Must my little hands be torn? 

And my heart bleed, all forlorn? 

I am but a child of five, 

And the street is all alive 

With the tops and balls and toys,— 

Pretty tops and balls and toys. 

Day in, day out, I toil—toil! 

And all that I know is toil; 

Never laugh as others do, 

Never crv as others do. 

Never see the stars at night, 

Nor the golden glow of sunlight,— 

And all for but a silver coin,— 

Just a worthless silver coin. 

Would that death might come to me! 

That blessed death might come to me, 

And lead me to waters cool, 

Lying in a tranquil pool, 

Up there where the angels sing, 

And the ivy tendrils cling 
To the land of play and song,— 

Fairy land of play and song. 

THE MULATTO’S SONG 

Die, you vain but sweet desires! 

Die, you living, burning fires! 

I am like a Prince of France,— 

Like a prince whose noble sires 


102 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Have been robbed of heritage ; 

I am phantom derelict, 

Drifting on a flaming sea. 

Everywhere I go, I strive, 

Vainly strive for greater things; 

Daisies die, and stars are cold, 

And canary never sings; 

Where I go they mock my name, 

Never grant me liberty, 

Chance to breathe and chance to do. 

The Vision of Lazarus, contained in A Little 
Dreaming, is a blank-verse poem of about three- 
hundred lines, original, well-sustained, imagina¬ 
tive, and deeply impressive. 

In one of the newer methods of verse, and yet 
with a splendid suggestion of the old Spirituals, 
I will take from a recent magazine a poem by Mr. 
Johnson that will show how the vision of his people 
is turned toward the future, from the welter of 
struggling forces in the World War: 

THE NEW DAY 

From a vision red with war I awoke and saw the Prince 
of Peace hovering over No Man’s Land. 

Loud the whistles blew and thunder of cannon was 
drowned by the happy shouting of the people. 
From the Sinai that faces Armageddon I heard this 
chant from the throats of white-robed angels: 

Blow your trumpets, little children! 

From the East and from the West, 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 103 


From the cities in the valley, 

From God’s dwelling on the mountain, 

Blow your blast that Peace might know 
She is Queen of God’s great army. 

With the crying blood of millions 
We have written deep her name 
In the Book of all the Ages; 

With the lilies in the valley, 

With the roses by the Mersey, 

With the golden flower of Jersey, 

We have crowned her smooth young temples. 

Where her footsteps cease to falter 
Golden grain will greet the morning, 

Where her chariot descends 
Shall be broken down the altar 
Of the gods of dark disturbance. 

Nevermore shall men know suffering, 

Nevermore shall women wailing 
Shake to grief the God of Heaven. 

From the East and from the AVest, 

From the cities in the valley, 

From God’s dwelling on the mountain, 

Little children, blow your trumpets! 

% 

From Ethiopia, groaning ’neath her heavy burdens I 
heard the music of the old slave songs. 

I heard the wail of warriors, dusk brown, who grimly 
fought the fight of others in the trenches of Mars. 
I heard the plea of blood-stained men of dusk and the 
crimson in my veins leapt furiously: 

Forget not, 0 my brothers, how we fought 

In No Man’s Land that peace might come again! 


104 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Forget not, O my brothers, liow we gave 
Red blood to save the freedom of the world! 

We were not free, our tawny hands were tied; 

But Belgium’s plight and Serbia’s woes we shared 
Each rise of sun or setting of the moon. 

So when the bugle blast had called us forth 
We went not like the surly brute of yore, 

But, as the Spartan, proud to give the world 
The freedom that we never knew nor shared. 

These chains, O brothers mine, have weighed us down 
As Samson in the temple of the gods; 

Unloosen them and let us breathe the air 
That makes the goldenrod the flower of Christ; 

For w r e have been with thee in No Man’s Land, 
Through lake of fire and down to Hell itself; 

And now we ask of thee our liberty, 

Our freedom in the land of Stars and Stripes. 

I am glad that the Prince of Peace is hovering over No 
Man’s Land. 

4 . Adolphus Johnson 

From the Preface of Adolphus Johnson’s The 
Silver Chord I will take a paragraph that is more 
poetic and perfect in expression than any stanza 
in his book. Poetry, I think, is in him, but when 
he wrote these rhymes he was not yet sufficiently 
disciplined in expression. But this is how he can 
say a thing in prose: 

“As the Goddess of Music takes down her lute, 
touches its silver chords, and sets the summer 
melodies of nature to words, so an inspiration 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 105 


comes to me in my profoundest slumbers and 
gently awakens my highest faculties to the finest 
thought and serenest contemplation herein ex¬ 
pressed. Always remember that a book is your 
best friend when it compels you to think, dis¬ 
enthralls your reason, enkindles your hopes, vivi¬ 
fies your imagination, and makes easier all the 
burdens of your daily life. ’ ? 

IV. William Stanley Braithwaite 

The critical and the creative faculties rarely 
dwell together in harmony. One or the other 
finally predominates. In the case of Mr. Braith¬ 
waite it seems to be the critical faculty. He has 
preferred, it seems, to be America’s chief antholo¬ 
gist, encouraging others up rugged Parnassus, 
rather than himself to stand on the heights of 
song. Since 1913 he has edited a series of annual 
anthologies of American magazine verse, which 
he has provided with critical reviews of the verse 
output of the respective year. Of several antholo¬ 
gies of English verse also he is the editor. Three 
books of original verse stand to his credit: Lyrics 
of Life and Love (1904), The House of Falling 
Leaves (1908), and Sandy Star and Willie Gee 
(1922). These dates seem to prove that the cre¬ 
ative impulse has waned. 

Verse artistry, in simple forms, reaches a degree 
of excellence in Mr. Braithwaite’s lyrics that has 
rarely been surpassed in our times. Graceful and 
esthetically satisfying expression is given to 


106 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


elusive or mystical and rare fancies. I will give 
one of his brief lyrics as an example of the quali¬ 
ties to which I allude: 

SANDY STAR 

No more from out the sunset, 

No more across the foam, 

No more across the windy hills 
Will Sandy Star come home. 

He went away to search it, 

With a curse upon his tongue, 

And in his hands the staff of life 
Made music as it swung. 

I wonder if he found it, 

And knows the mysterj^ now : 

Our Sandy Star who went away 
With the secret on his brow. 

In a number of Air. Braithwaite’s lyrics, as in 
this one, there is an atmosphere of mystery that, 
with the charming simplicity of manner, strongly 
suggests Blake. There is a strangeness in all 
beauty, it has been said. There is commonly 
something of Faeryland in the finest lyric poetry. 
Another lyric illustrating this quality in Mr. 
Braithwaite is the following: 

IT’S A LONG AY AY 

It’s a long way the sea-winds blow 
Over the sea-plains blue,— 

But longer far has my heart to go 
Before its dreams come true. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 107 


It’s work we must, and love we must, 

And do the best we may, 

And take the hope of dreams in trust 
To keep us day by day. 

It’s a long way the sea-winds blow— 

But somewhere lies a shore— 

Thus down the tide of Time shall flow 
My dreams forevermore. 

Mr. Braithwaite’s art rises above race. He 
seems not to be race-conscious in bis writing, 
whether prose or verse. Yet no man can say 
but that race has given his poetry the distinctive 
quality I have indicated. In this connection a 
most interesting poem is his “A New England 
Spinster. ” The detachment is perfect, the an¬ 
alysis is done in the spirit of absolute art. I will 
quote but two of its dozen or so stanzas: 

She dwells alone, and never heeds 

How strange may sound her own footfall, 

And yet is prompt to others’ needs, 

Or ready at a neighbor’s call. 

But still her world is one apart, 

Serene above desire and change; 

There are no hills beyond her heart, 

Beyond her gate, no winds that range. 

Here is the true artist’s imagination that pene¬ 
trates to the secrets of life. No poet’s lyrics, 
with their deceptive simplicity, better reward 
study for a full appreciation of their idea. So 


108 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


much of suggestion to the reader of the poems 
which follow: 


FOSCATI 

Blest be Foscati! You’ve heard tell 

How—spirit and flesh of him—blown to flame, 
Leaped the stars for heaven, dropped back to hell, 
And felt no shame. 

I here indite this record of his journey: 

The splendor of his epical will to perform 
Life’s best, with the lance of Truth at Tourney— 
Till caught in the storm. 

Of a woman’s face and hair like scented clover, 

Te Deums, Lauds, and Magnificat, he 
Praised with tongue of saint, heart of lover— 

Missed all, but found Foscati! 

AUTUMN SADNESS 

The warm October rain fell upon his dream, 

When once again the autumn sadness stirred, 

And murmured through his blood, like a hidden stream 
In a forest, unheard. 

The drowsy rain battered against his delight 
Of the half forgotten poignancies, 

That settle in the dusk of an autumn night 
On a world one hear^ $nd sees. 

One was, he thought, an echo merely, 

A glow enshadowed of truths untraced; 

But the autumn sadness, brought him yearly, 

Was a joy embraced. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 109 


THANKING GOD 

The way folks had of thanking God 
He found annoying, till he thought 

Of flame and coolness in the sod— 

Of balms and blessings that they wrought 

And so the habit grew, and then— 

Of when and how he did not care— 

He found his God as other men 

The mystic verb in a grammar of prayer. 

He never knelt, nor uttered words—- 
His laughter felt no chastening rod; 

“My being,” he said, “is a choir of birds, 

And all my senses are thanking God. ’ ’ 

Mr. Braithwaite is thoroughly conversant, as 
these selections indicate, with the subtleties and 
finest effects of the art poetic, and his impulses 
to write spring from the deepest human specu¬ 
lations, the purest motives of art. Hence in his 
work he takes his place among the few. 

V. George Reginald Mar get son 

Under tropical suns, amid the tropical luxuri¬ 
ance of nature, developed the many-hued imagina¬ 
tion of the subject of this sketch. His nature is 
tropical, for Mr. Margetson is a prolific bard: 
Songs of Life, The Fledgling Bard and the Poetry 
Society, Ethiopia's Flight, England in the West 
Indies —four published books, and more yet un- 


110 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 

published are proof. No excerpts can fully re¬ 
veal the distinctive quality of Mr. Margetson’s 
poetry its sonorous and ever-varying flow, like 

a mountain stream, 
its descriptive rich¬ 
ness in which it re¬ 
sembles his native 
islands. For he was 
born in the British 
West Indies, and 
there lived the first 
twenty years of his 
life. Coming to 
America in 1897, his 
home has been in 
Boston or its en¬ 
vironment since that 
time. Educated in 
the Moravian School 

t St. Kitts, he has 

ived with and in the English poets from Spenser 

to Byron—Byron seems to have been his favorite 
—and so has cultivated his native talent. I can 
give here but one brief lyric from his pen. 



the light op victory 

In the East a star is rising, 

Breaking through the clouds of war 
With a light old arts revising 
Shattering steel and iron bar. 




THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 111 


Freedom’s heirs with banners blazing, 
Emblems of Democracy, 

At the magic light are gazing 
Battling with Autocracy. 


Through the night brave souls are marching 
With the armies of the Free; 

Where the Stars and Stripes o ’er-arching 
Form a sheltering canopy. 

Allies! hold a front united! 

Shaping v T ell our destiny; 

Let each brutal wrong be righted 
In the drive for Liberty! 


VI. William Moore 

The productions I have seen in the Negro maga¬ 
zines and newspapers from William Moore’s pen 
give me the idea of a poet distinctly original and 
distinctly endowed with imagination. If there 
appears some obscurity in his poems let it not 
be too hastily set down against him as a fault. 
Some ideas are intrinsically obscure. The expres¬ 
sion of them that should be lucid would be false, 
inadequate. Some poets there needs must be who,, 
escaping from the inevitable, the commonplace,, 
will transport us out into infinity to confront the 
eternal mysteries. Mr. Moore does this in two> 
sonnets which I will give to represent his poetic 
work: 


112 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


EXPECTANCY 

I do not care for sleep, I ’ll wait awhile 
For Love to come out of the darkness, wait 
For laughter, gifted with the frequent fate 
Of dusk-lit hope, to touch me with the smile 
Of moon and star and joy of that last mile 
Before I reach the sea. The ships are late 
And mayhap laden with the precious freight 
Dawn brings from Life’s eternal summer isle. 

And should I find the sweeter fruits of dream— 
The oranges of love and mating song— 

I ’ll laugh so true the morn will gavly seem 
Endless and ships full laden with a throng 
Of beauty, dreams and loves will come to me 
Out of the surge of yonder silver sea. 

AS THE OLD YEAR PASSED 

I stood with dear friend Death awhile last night, 
Out where the stars shone with a lustre true 
In sacred dreams and all the old and new 
Of love and life winged in a silver flight 
Off to the sea of peace that waits where white, 
Pale silences melt in the tranquil blue 
Of skies so tender beauty doth imbue 
The time with holiness and singing light. 

My heart is Life, my soul, 0 Death, is thine! 

Is thine to kiss with yearning life again, 

Is thine to strengthen and to sweet incline 
To peace and mellowed dream of joy’s refrain. 
I ’ll stand with Death again to-night, I think, 

Out where the stars reveal life’s deeper brink. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 113 


VII. Joshua Henry Jones, Jr. 

Poets are born and nurtured in all conditions 
of life: Joseph Cotter the elder was a slave- 
woman’s child; Dunbar wrote his first book be¬ 
tween the runs of the elevator he tended; Leon 
R. Harris was left in 
infancy to the dreary 
shelter of an orphan¬ 
age, then indentured 
to a brutal farmer; 

Carmichael came 
from the cabin of an 
unlettered farmer in 
the Black Belt of 
Alabama ; of a dozen 
others the story is 
similar. Born in pov¬ 
erty, up through ad¬ 
versities they strug¬ 
gled, with little hu¬ 
man help save per¬ 
haps from the croons 
and caresses of a singing mother, and a few 
terms at a wretched school, they toiled into the 
kingdom of knowledge and entered the world 
of poetry. Some, however, have had the advan¬ 
tages afforded by parents of culture and of means. 
Among these is the subject of this sketch, the son 
of Bishop J. H. Jones, of the African Methodist 
Episcopal Church. He has had the best educa- 



Joshtja Henry Jones, Jr. 





114 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


tional opportunity offered by American colleges. 
He is a graduate of Brown University. Writing 
has been his employment since graduation, and he 
has been on the staffs of several New England 
papers. His first book of poems, entitled The 
Heart of the World (1919), now in the second 
edition, reveals at once a student of poetry and 
an independent artist in verse. His second book, 
Poems of the Four Seas (1921), shows that his 
vein is still rich in ore. 

In Chapter VIII I give his “Goodbye, Old 
Year. ” Another poem of similar technique takes 
for its title the last words of Colonel Roosevelt: 
“Turn out the light, please.” The reader can¬ 
not but note the sense of proper effect exhibited 
in the short sentences, the very manner of a dying 
man. But more than this will be perceived in this 
poem. It will seem to have sprung out of the 
world-weary soul of the young poet himself. 
Struggle, grief, weariness in the strife, have been 
his also. Hence: 

TURN OUT THE LIGHT 

Turn out the light. Now would I slumber, 

I’m weary with the toil of day. 

Let me forget my pains to number. 

Turn out the light. Dreams come to play. 

Turn out the light. The hours were dreary. 

Clouds of despair long hid the sun. 

I’ve battled hard and now I’m weary. 

Turn out the light. My day is done. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 115 


I ’ve done life’s best gloom’s ways to brighten— 

I’ve scattered cheer from heart to heart, 

And where I could I’ve sought to righten 
The wrongs of men ere day depart. 

This morn ’twas bright with hope—and cheery. 

This noon gave courage—made me brave. 

But as the sun sank I grew weary 
Till now my soul for rest doth crave. 

Turn out the light. I’ve done my duty 

To friend and enemv as well. 

%/ 

I go to sleep where things of beauty 
In glitt’ring chambers ever dwell. 

Turn out the light. Now would I slumber. 

To rest—to dream—soon go we all. 

Let’s hope we wake soul free of cumber. 

Turn out the light. Dream comrades call. 

The next piece I select from Mr. Jones’s first 
book will represent his talent in another sphere. 
I suggest that comparison might be made between 
this song in literary English and Mr. Johnson’s 
Negro love song in dialect, page 226. 


A SOUTHERN LOVE SONG 

Dogwoods all a-bloom 
Perfume earth’s big room, 

White full moon is gliding o’er the sky serene. 
Quiet reigns about, 

In the house and out; 


116 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Hoot owl in the hollow mopes with solemn mien. 
Birds have gone to rest 
In each tree-top nest; 

Cotton fields a-shimmer flash forth silver-green. 

0 ’er the wild cane brake, 
Whip-poor-wills awake, 

And they speak in tender voicings, Heart, of You. 
Answering my call, 

Through the leafy hall, 

Telling how I’m waiting for your tripping, Sue. 

All the world is glad, 

Just because I’m mad. 

Sense-bereft am I through my great love for you. 

Night is all a-smile, 

Happy all the while. 

That is why my heart so filled with song o’erflows. 
I have tarried long, 

Lilting here my song. 

And I’ll ever waiting be till life’s step slows. 
Come to me, my girl, 

Precious more than pearl, 

I’ll be waiting for you where the grapevine grows. 

How my heart doth yearn, 

And with anguish burn, 

Hungry for sweet pains awaked with your embrace. 
Starward goes my cry. 

Echo hears my sigh. 

Heaven itself its pity at my plight shows trace. 
Parson waits to wed. 

Soon the nuptials said. 

I’ve a rose-clad cottage reared for you to grace. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 117 


The title-piece of Mr. Jones’s first volume re¬ 
veals his mastery of effective form and his com¬ 
mand of the language of passionate appeal. The 
World War, in which the Negroes of the country 
gave liberally and heroically, both of blood and 
treasure, for democracy, quickened failing hopes 
in them and kindled anew their aspirations. In 
this poem the writer speaks for his entire race: 

THE HEART OF THE WORLD 

In the heart of the world is the call for peace— 
Up-surging, symphonic roar. 

’Tis ill of all clashings; it seeks release 
From fetters of greed and gore. 

The winds of the battlefields echo the sigh 
Of heroes slumbering deep, 

Who gave all they had and now dreamlessly lie 
Where the bayonets sent them to sleep. 

Peace for the wealthy ; peace for the poor; 

Peace on the hillside , and peace on the moor. 

In the heart of the world is the call for right: 

For fingers to bind up the wound, 

Slashed deep by the ruthless, harsh hand of might, 
When Justice is crushed to the ground. 

’Tis ill of the fevers of fear of the strong— 

Of jealousies—prejudice—pride. 

“Is there no ideal that’s proof against wrong?” 
Man asks of the man at his side. 

Bight for the lowly; right for the great; 

Bight all to pilot to happiness ’ gate. 


118 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


In the heart of the world is the call for love: 

White heart—Red—Yellow—and Black. 

Each face turns to Bethlehem’s bright star above, 
Though wolves of self howl at each back. 

The whole earth is lifting its voice in a prayer 
That nations may learn to endure, 

Without killing and maiming, but doing what’s fair 
With a soul that is noble and pure. 

Love in weak peoples; love in the strong; 

Love that will banish all hatred and wrong. 

In the heart of the world is the call of God; 

East—West—and North—and South. 

Stirring, deep-yearning, breast-heaving call for God 
A-tremble behind each mouth. 

The heart’s ill of torments that rend men’s souls. 

Skyward lift all faiths and hopes ; 

Across all the oceans the evidence rolls, 

Refreshing all life’s arid slopes. 

God in the highborn; God in the low; 

God calls us, world-brothers. Hark ye! and know. 

From Poems of the Four Seas I will take a 
piece that gives the Negro background for the 
yearning expressed in the foregoing poem: 


BROTHERS 

They bind his feet; they thong his hands 
With hard hemp rope and iron bands. 
They scourge his back in ghoulish glee; 
And bleed his flesh;—men, mark ye—free. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 119 


They still his groans with fiendish shout, 
Where flesh streams red they ply the knout. 
Thus sons of men feed lust to kill 
And yet, oh God! they Ye brothers still. 

They build a pyre of torch and flame 
While Justice weeps in deepest shame. 

E ’en Death in pity bows its head, 

Yet ’midst these men no prayer is said. 

They gather up charred flesh and bone— 
Mementos—boasting brave deed done. 

They sip of gore their souls to fill; 

Drink deep of blood their hands did spill. 

Go tell the world what men have done 
Who prate of God and yet have none; 

Think of themselves as wholly good, 

Blaspheme the name of brotherhood; 

Who hearken not as brothers cry 
For brother’s chance to live and die. 

To keep a demon’s murder tryst 
They’d rend the sepulcher of Christ. 


Till. Walter Everette Ilaivkins 

CREDO 

I am an Iconoclast. 

I break the limbs of idols 
And smash the traditions of men. 

I am an Anarchist. 

I believe in war and destruction— 

Not in the killing of men, 

But the killing of creed and custom. 


120 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


I am an Agnostic. 

I accept nothing without questioning. 

It is my inherent right and duty 
To ask the reason why. 

To accept without a reason 
Is to debase one’s humanity 
And destroy the fundamental process 
In the ascertainment of Truth. 

I believe in Justice and Freedom. 

To me Liberty is priestly and kingly; 

Freedom is my Bride, 

Liberty my Angel of Light, 

Justice my God. 

I oppose all laws of state or country, 

All creeds of church and social orders, 

All conventionalities of society and system 
Which cross the path of the light of Freedom 
Or obstruct the reign of Right. 

This is a faithful self-characterization—such a 
man in reality is W T alter Everette Hawkins. A 
fearless and independent and challenging spirit. 
He is the rare kind of man that must put every¬ 
thing to the severe test of absolute principles. 
He hates shams, hypocrisies, compromises, chi¬ 
caneries, injustices. His poems are the bold and 
faithful expressions of his personality. Free he 
has ever been, free he will be ever, striking right 
out for freedom and truth. Such a personality 
is refreshing to meet, whether you encounter it 
in the flesh or in a book. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 121 


Born about thirty-five years ago, on a little farm 
in North Carolina, the thirteenth child of ex-slave 
parents, young Hawkins, one may imagine, was 
not opulent in this 
world’s goods. Nor 
were his opportuni¬ 
ties such as are 
usually considered 
thrilling. A few 
terms of miserable 
schooling in the vil¬ 
lage of Warrenton, 
the fragments of a 
few more terms in a 
school maintained by 
the African Metho¬ 
dist Church, then— 

“the Universitv of 

*/ 

Hard Knocks.” In 
the two first-named 
schools the independent-spirited lad seems not to 
have gotten along well with his teachers, hence a 
few dismissals. Always too prone to ask trouble¬ 
some, challenging questions, too prone to doubts 
and reflections, he was thought incorrigible. In 
his “University” he chose his own masters—the 
great free spirits of the ages—and at the feet of 
these he was teachable, even while the knocks 
were hardest. 

A lover of wild nature and able to commune 
with nature’s spirit, deeply fond also of commun- 






122 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


ing with the world’s master minds in books, Mr. 
Hawkins is by necessity—while his spirit soars— 
the slave of routine toil, being, until recently, a 
mail clerk in the post office of the City of Wash¬ 
ington. “My only recreation,” he writes me, 
“is in stealing away to be with the masters, the 
intellectual dynamos, of the world, who converse 
with me without wincing and deliver me the key 
to life’s riddle.” 

A true expression of himself I said Mr. 
Hawkins’s poems are. In no degree are they fic¬ 
tions. As a companion to Credo, quoted to intro¬ 
duce him, I will give the last poem in his book, 
which will again set him before us as he is: 

HERO OF THE ROAD 
Let me seek no statesman’s mantle, 

Let me seek no victor’s wreath, 

Let my sword unstained in battle 
Still lie rusting in its sheath; 

Let my garments be unsullied, 

Let no man’s blood to me cling; 

Life is love and earth is heaven, 

If I may but soar and sing. 

This then is my sternest struggle, 

Ease the load and sing my song, 

Lift the lame and cheer the cheerless 
As they plod the road along; 

And we see ourselves transfigured 
In a new and bigger plan; 

Man transformed, his own Messiah, 

God embodied into man. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 123 


For the whining craven class of men Mr. Haw¬ 
kins has little respect: 

The man who complains 
When the world is all song, 

Or dares to sit mute 

When the world is all wrong; 

Who barters his freedom 
Yile honors to win, 

Deserves but to die 

With the vilest of men. 

Upon the times in which we live his judgment 
is severe. His condemnation, however, bears wit¬ 
ness to that earnestness of soul and that idealism 
of spirit which will not let the world repose in its 
wickedness. From a list of several poems at¬ 
testing this I select the following as perhaps the 
most complete in form: 

THE DEATH OP JUSTICE 

These the dread days which the seers have foretold, 

These the fell years which the prophets have dreamed; 
Visions they saw in those full days of old, 

The fathers have sinned and the children blasphemed. 
Hurt is the wrnrld, and its heart is unhealed, 

Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield. 

We have come to the travail of troublous times, 

Justice must bow before Moloch and Baal; 

Blasphemous prayers for the triumph of crimes, 

High sounds the cry of the children who wail. 

Hurt is the world, and its heart is unhealed, 

Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield. 


124 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


In the brute strength of the sword men rely, 

They count not Justice in reckoning things; 

Whom their lips worship their hearts crucify, 

This the oblation the votary brings. 

Hurt is the world, and its heart is unhealed, 

Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield. 

Locked in death-struggle humanity’s host, 

Seeking revenge with the dagger and sword; 

This is the pride which the Pharisees boast, 

Man damns his brother in the name of his Lord. 

Hurt is the world, and its heart is unhealed, 

Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield. 

Time dims the glare of the pomp and applause, 
Vainglorious monarchs and proud princes fall; 

Until the death of Time revokes his laws, 

His awful mandate shall reign over all. 

Hurt is the world, and its heart is unhealed, 

Wrong sways the sceptre and Justice must yield. 

A number of Mr. Hawkins ’s productions reveal 
possibilities of beauty and effectiveness, which he 
had not the patience or the skill to realize. One 
imagines that he has never been able to bring 
his spirit to a submissive study of the minutiae of 
metrical composition. A poet in esse —or in posse 
—is all that nature ever makes. And even the 
most free spirit must know well the traditions. 
Whether this iconoclast knows the Cavalier tra¬ 
ditions of English poetry may be left to conjec¬ 
ture, but the following piece, illustrating Mr. 
Hawkins’s faults and virtues as a singer, will 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 125 


prove his kinship to the poetic tribe of which 
Lovelace and Suckling were conspicuous mem¬ 
bers : 


ASK ME WHY I LOVE YOU 

Ask me why I love you, dear, 

And I will ask the rose 
Why it loves the dews of Spring 
At the Winter’s close; 

Why the blossoms’ nectared sweets 

•/ 

Loved by questing bee,— 

I will gladly answer you, 

If they answer me. 

Ask me why I love you, dear, 

I will ask the flower 
Whv it loves the Summer sun, 

1/ 7 

Or the Summer shower; 

I will ask the lover’s heart 
Why it loves the moon, 

Or the star-besprinkled skies 
In a night in June. 


Ask me why I love you, dear, 
I will ask the vine 
Why its tendrils trustingly 
Round the oak entwine; 
Why you love the mignonette 
Better than the rue,— 

If you will but answer me, 

I will answer you. 


126 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Ask me why I love you, dear, 

Let the lark reply, 

Why his heart is full of song 
When the twilight’s nigh; 

Why the lover heaves a sigh 
When her heart is true; 

If you will but answer me, 

I will answer you. 

IX. Claude McKay 

An English subject, being born and growing to 
manhood in Jamaica, Claude McKay, a pure blood 

Negro, was first dis¬ 
covered as a poet by 
English critics. In 
Jamaica, as early as 
1911, when he was but 
twenty-two years of 
age, his Const ab Bal¬ 
lads, in Negro dialect, 
was published. Even 
in so broken a tongue 
this book revealed a 
poet—on the con¬ 
stabulary force of 
•/ 

Jamaica. In 1920 his 
first book of poems in 
literary English, 
Spring in Neiv Hamp¬ 
shire, came out in England, with a Preface by- 
Mr. I. A. Richards, of Cambridge, England. 



Claude McKay 




THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 127 


Meanwhile, shortly after the publication of his 
first book, he had come to the United States. 

Here he has worked at various occupations, has 
taken courses in Agriculture and English in the 
Kansas State College, and has thus become ac¬ 
quainted with life in the States. He is now on 
the editorial staff of the Liberator, New York. 
There has been no poet of his race who has more 
poignantly felt and more artistically expressed 
the life of the American Negro. His poetry is a 
most noteworthy contribution to literature. From 
Spring in Neiv Hampshire I am privileged to take 
a number of poems which will follow without 
comment: 


SPRING IN NEW HAMPSHIRE 

Too green the springing April grass, 

Too blue the silver-speckled sky, 

For me to linger here, alas, 

While happy winds go laughing by, 
Wasting the golden hours indoors, 
Washing windows and scrubbing floors. 


Too wonderful the April night, 

Too faintly sweet the first May flowers, 

The stars too gloriously bright, 

For me to spend the evening hours, 

When fields are fresh and streams are leaping, 
Wearied, exhausted, dully sleeping. 


128 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


THE LYNCHING 

His spirit in smoke ascended to high heaven. 

His Father, by the crudest way of pain, 

Had bidden him to his bosom once again; 

The awful sin remained still unforgiven: 

All night a bright and solitary star 
(Perchance the one that ever guided him, 

Yet gave him up at last to Fate’s wild whim) 

Hung pitifully o’er the swinging char. 

Day dawned, and soon the mixed crowds came to view 
The ghastly body swaying in the sun: 

The women thronged to look, but never a one 
Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue, 

And little lads, lynchers that were to be, 

Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee. 


THE HARLEM DANCER 

Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes 
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway; 

Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes 
Blown by black players upon a picnic day. 

She sang and danced on gracefully and calm, 

The light gauze hanging loose about her form; 

To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm 
Grown lovelier for passing through a storm. 

Upon her swarthy neck, black, shiny curls 
Profusely fell; and, tossing coins in praise, 

The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls, 
Devoured her with eager, passionate gaze: 

But, looking at her falsely-smiling face, 

I knew her self was not in that strange place. 


/ 

THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 129 

IN BONDAGE 

I would be wandering in distant fields 
Where man, and bird, and beast live leisurely, 

And the old earth is kind and ever yields 
Her goodly gifts to all her children free; 

Where life is fairer, lighter, less demanding, 

And boys and girls have time and space for play 
Before they come to years of understanding,— 
Somewhere I would be singing, far away; 

For life is greater than the thousand wars 
Men wage for it in their insatiate lust, 

And will remain like the eternal stars 
When all that is to-day is ashes and dust: 

But I am bound with you in your mean graves, 

Oh, black men, simple slaves of ruthless slaves. 

Distinction of idea and phrase inheres in these 
poems. In them the Negro is esthetically con¬ 
ceived, and interpreted with vision. This is art 
working as it should. Mr. McKay has passion 
and the control of it to the ends of art. He has 
the poet’s insight, the poet’s understanding. 

Perhaps the most arresting poem in this list, 
and the one most surely attesting the genius of the 
writer, is The Harlem Dancer. It is an achieve¬ 
ment in portrayal sufficient by itself to establish 
a poetic reputation. The divination that pene¬ 
trates to the secret purity of soul, or nobleness 
of character, through denying appearances—how 
rare is the faculty, and how necessary! Else¬ 
where I give a poem from a Negro woman which 




\ 

130 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 

evinces the same divine gift in the author, exhib¬ 
ited in a poem no less original and no less deeply 
impressive—Mrs. Spencer’s At the Carnival. 
Here I will companion The Harlem Dancer with 
one from Mr. Dandridge, for the comparison will 
deepen the effect of each: 


ZALKA PEETRUZA 

(Who Was Christened Lucy Jane) 

She danced, near nude, to tom-tom beat, 
With swaying arms and flying feet, 

’Mid swirling spangles, gauze and lace, 

Her all was dancing—save her face. 

A conscience, dumb to brooding fears, 
Companioned hearing deaf to cheers; 

A body, marshalled by the will, 

Kept dancing while a heart stood still: 

And eyes obsessed with vacant stare 
Looked over heads to empty air, 

As though they sought to find therein 
Redemption for a maiden sin. 

’Twas thus, amid force-driven grace, 

We found the lost look on her face; 

And then, to us, did it occur 

That, though we saw—we saw not her. 


Returning to Mr. McKay, we may assert that 
his new volume of verse, Harlem Shadows , con- 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 131 


firms and enhances the estimate of him we have 
expressed. 


X. Leslie Pinckney Hill 

Bearing the diploma of the Lyric Muse, Mr. 
Leslie Pinckney Hill, schoolmaster of Cheyney, 
Pennsylvania, and authentic singer, is one of the 
newest arrivals on 
the slopes of Par¬ 
nassus. A first glance 
tells that he is an 
agile climber, sinewy, 
easy of movement, 
light of step, with 
both grace and 
strength. Every in¬ 
dication in form and 
motion is for some 
point far up toward 
the summit. Youth¬ 
ful he is, ambitious, 
plainly, and, in spite 
of a burden, buoyant. 

‘ 4 Climber, ’ ’ I said. I 
will drop the figure. Poets were never pedestri¬ 
ans. Mr. Hill comes not afoot. If not on the 
wings of Pegasus, yet on wings he comes —the 
wings of oppression. Sad wings! yet it must be 
remarked that it is commonly on such wings that 
poets of whatever race and time rise. And Mr. 



Leslie Pinckney Hill 











132 NEGO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


HilPs race knows no other wings. On the wings 
of oppression the Negro poet and the Negro people 
are rising toward the summits of Parnassus, 
Pisgah, and other peaks. This they know, too, 
and of it they are justly proud. 

In his Foreword Mr. Hill thus states the case 
of his people, and, by implication, of himself: 
“Nothing in the life of the nation has seemed to 
me more significant than that dark civilization 
which the colored man has built up in the midst 
of a white society organized against it. The Negro 
has been driven under all the burdens of oppres¬ 
sion, both material and spiritual, to the brink of 
desperation, but he has always been saved by his 
philosophy of life. He has advanced against all 
opposition by a certain elevation of his spirit. 
He has been made strong in tribulation. He has 
constrained oppression to give him wings. ” 

The significant thing about these wings, in a 
critical view, is that they fulfill the proper func¬ 
tion of wings—bear aloft and sustain in flight 
through the azure depths. Mr. Hill’s wings do 
bear aloft and sustain: if not always, nor even 
ever, into the very empyrean of poetry yet in¬ 
variably, seventy times, into the ampler air. Like 
all his race, he has suffered much; and, like all 
his race still, he has gathered wisdom from sorrow. 
As a true poet should have, he has philosophy, 
also vision and imagination—vision for himself 
and his people, imagination that sees facts in 
terms of beauty and presents truths with vital 



THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 133 


imagery. Add thereto craftsmanship acquired in 
the best traditions of English poetry and yon have 
Hill the poet. 

The merit of his book cannot be shown by lines 
and stanzas. As ever with true art, the merit 
lies in the whole effect of complete poems. Still, 
w r e may here first detach from this and that poem 
a stanza or two, despite the wrong to art. The 
first and fourth stanzas of the title-poem will 
indicate Mr. Hill’s technique and philosophy: 

I have a song that few will sing 
In honor of all suffering, 

A song to which my heart can bring 
The homage of believing— 

A song the heavy-laden hears 
Above the clamor of his fears, 

While still he walks with blinding tears, 

And drains the cup of grieving. 

****** 

So long as life is steeped in wrong, 

And nations cry: “How long, how long!” 

I look not to the wise and strong 
For peace and self-possession; 

But right will rise, and mercy shine, 

And justice lift her conquering sign 
Where lowly people starve and pine 
Beneath a world oppression. 

The character and temper of the Negro in those 
gentler aspects which make such an appeal to the 
heart are revealed in the following sonnet: 


134 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


MATER DOLOROSA 

0 mother, there are moments when I know 
God’s presence to the full. The city street 
May wrap me in the tumult and the heat 
Of futile striving; bitter winds may blow 
With winter-wilting freeze of hail and snow, 

And all my hopes lie shattered in defeat; 

But in my heart the springtime blossoms sweet, 

And heaven seems very near the way I go. 

These moments are the angels of that prayer 
Which thou hast breathed for many a troubled year 
With bended knee and swarthy-streaming face— 
“Uphold him, Father, with a double care: 

He is but mortal, yet his days must bear 
The world cross, and the burden of his race.” 

If these poems, taken collectively, do not declare 
“what is on the Negro’s mind” they yet truly 
reveal, to the reflecting person, what has sunk 
deep into his heart. They are therefore a message 
to America, a protest, an appeal, and a warning. 
They will penetrate, I predict, through breast- 
armor of aes triplex into the hearts of those whom 
sermons and editorials fail to touch in the springs 
of action. Such is the virtue of music wed to 
persuasive words. In strong lines of soaring 
blank verse, in which Mr. Hill is particularly 
capable, he makes a direct appeal to America in 
behalf of his people, in a poem entitled Armaged¬ 
don : 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 135 


Because ye schooled them in the arts of life, 

And gave to them your God, and poured your blood 
Into their veins to make them what they are, 

They shall not fail you in the hour of need. 

They own in them enough of you to feel 
All that has made you masters in your time— 

Dear art and riches, unremitting toil, 

Proud types of beauty, an unbounded will 
To triumph, wondrous science and old law— 

These have they learned to covet and to share. 

But deeper in them still is something steeled 
To hot abhorrence and unmeasured dread 
Of your undaunted sins against the light— 

Red sins of lust, of envy and of hate, 

Of guilty gain extorted from the weak, 

Of brotherhood traduced, and God denied. 

All this have they beheld without revolt, 

And borne the brunt in agonizing prayer. 

For other strains of blood that flow from times 
Older than Egypt, whence the dark man gave 
The rudiments of learning to all lands, 

Have been a strong constraint. And they have dreamed 
Of a peculiar mission under heaven, 

And felt the force of unexampled gifts 
That make for them a rare inheritance— 

The gift of cheerful confidence in man, 

The gift of calm endurance, solacing 
An infinite capacity for pain, 

The gift of an unfeigned humility, 

Blinding the eyes of strident arrogance 


136 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


And bigot pride to that philosophy 

And that far-glancing wisdom which it veils, 

Of joy in beauty, hardihood in toil, 

Of hope in tribulation, and of wide 
Adaptive power without a parallel 
In chronicles of men. 

A sonnet entitled To a Caged Canary in a 
Negro Restaurant will present the poet’s people 
with the persuasiveness of pathos as the forego¬ 
ing poem with the persuasiveness of reason: 

Thou little golden bird of happy song! 

A cage cannot restrain the rapturous joy 
Which thou dost shed abroad. Thou dost employ 
Thy bondage for high uses. Grievous wrong 
Is thine; yet in thy heart glows full and strong 
The tropic sun, though far beyond thy flight, 

And though thou flutterest there by day and night 
Above the clamor of a dusky throng. 

So let my will, albeit hedged about 

By creed and caste, feed on the light within; 

So let my song sing through the bars of doubt 
With light and healing where despair has been; 

So let my people bide their time and place, 

A hindered but a sunny-hearted race. 

It would be an injustice to this poet did I con¬ 
vey the idea that his seventy-odd poems are ex¬ 
clusively occupied with race wrongs and oppres¬ 
sion. Not a few of them bear no stamp of an 
oppressed or afflicted spirit, though of sorrow they 
may have been nurtured. 


THE PRESENT RENAISSANCE 137 


A lyric of pure loveliness is the following, 
entitled 


TO A NOBLY-GIFTED SINGER 

All the pleasance of her face 
Telleth of an inward grace; 

In her dark eyes I have seen 
Sorrows of the Nazarene; 

In the proud and perfect mould 
Of her body I behold, 

Rounded in a single view, 

The good, the beautiful, the true; , 

And when her spirit goes up-winging 
On sweet airs of artless singing, 

Surely the heavenly spheres rejoice 
In union with a kindred voice. 

Schoolmaster I said Mr. Hill was. To repre¬ 
sent his didactic quality, not his purer lyrical note, 
nor yet his narrative beauty, I choose the follow¬ 
ing piece: 


SELF-DETERMINATION 

The Philosophy of the American Negro 

Four things we will not do, in spite of all 
That demons plot for our decline and fall; 

We bring four benedictions which the meek 
Unto the proud are privileged to speak, 

Four gifts by which amidst all stern-browed races 
We move with kindly hearts and shining faces. 


138 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


We will not hate. Law, custom, creed and caste, 

All notwithstanding, here we hold us fast. 

Down through the years the mighty ships of state 
Have all been broken on the rocks of hate. 

We will not cease to laugh and multiply. 

We slough off trouble, and refuse to die. 

The Indian stood unyielding, stark and grim; 

We saw him perish, and we learned of him 
To mix a grain of philosophic mirth 
With all the crass injustices of earth. 

We will not use the ancient carnal tools. 

These never won, yet centuries of schools, 

Of priests, and all the work of brush and pen 
Have not availed to win the wisest men 
From futile faith in battleship and shell: 

We see them fall, and mark that folly well. 

We will not waver in our loyalty. 

No strange voice reaches us across the sea; 

No crime at home shall stir us from this soil. 

Ours is the guerdon, ours the blight of toil, 

But raised above it by a faith sublime 
We choose to suffer here and bide our time. 

And if we hold to this, we dream some day 
Our countrymen will follow in our way. 

But though teacher Leslie Pinckney Hill is 
singer too. And though he has a message for 
America he also has music. His powers are rich, 
varied, cultured, and developing. His second 
book will be better than his excellent first. 


CHAPTER III 


THE HEART OF NEGRO WOMANHOOD 

7. Miss Eva A. Jessye 

From newspapers I have dipt several poems 
by Miss Jessye that exhibit a nature touched to 
the finer things of the 
world and of life. 

She has fancy, and 
skill in expression. I 
concluded section I 
of chapter II with a 
poem of hers, and I 
will here give two 
more. The first, in a 
lighter vein, betrays 
the human nature of 
a school-teacher in 
the midst of her vexa¬ 
tions while she tries 
to appear above the 
reach of common de¬ 
sires. 

SPRING WITH THE TEACHER 

’Tis now the time of silver moon, 

Of swelling bud and fancies free 
As western winds, but then, ah me! 

May cannot come too soon; 

139 



Miss Eva A. Jessye 







140 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 

The rover calls in every child, 

And sets his pulses running wild! 

‘‘Do stop that noise and take your seat! 
Joe, learn to study quietly! 

Why girl, it surely has me beat 
How you forget geography! 

BraziPs in Spain? Here, close that book! 
What caused the Civil War, you say?— 
Suzanna says somebody took 
Her beads; return them right away! 

“Now boy, I told you once before 
To put that story book away! 

I’ll call the roll: Beatrice Moore, 

Why were you absent yesterday? 

Why yes, I heard that mocking bird. 

Lee Arthur, straighten up your face! 

Well, surely, class, you never heard 
Of adverbs having tense and case! 

“Now, James, explain the term ‘per cent/ 
My, my, ’tis surely not forgot! 

If it were fun or devilment 
You’d know it all, sir, like as not! 

Who put that bent pin in my chair? 

No one of course—bent pins can walk! 

I’ll tell you though, had I sat there 
I’d make these straps and switches talk. 

“A picnic on for Saturday? 

(I wish that I were going, too!) 

Oh, no! I couldn’t get away, 

I have so many things to do. 


THE HEART OF WOMANHOOD 141 


Well, there’s the bell! Goodbye, goodbye, 

And be good children, don’t forget.”— 

Well, thank the Lord they’re gone, but I 
Can hear their joyous laughter yet. 

’Tis now the time of silver moon, 

Of swelling bud and fancies free 
As western winds, but then, ah me! 

May cannot come too soon! 

Though the moral motive is rarely consistent 
with the artistic, yet in the next poem of Miss 
Jessye’s I shall give there is a perfect reconcilia¬ 
tion. Original no doubt is the idea of this poem, 
but Sappho, it seems to me, as one of her frag¬ 
ments bears witness, had meditated upon the very 
same idea twenty-five centuries ago. 

TO A ROSEBUD 

O dainty bud, I hold thee in my hand— 

A castaway, a dead, a lifeless thing, 

A few days since I saw thee, wet with dew, 

A bud of promise to thy parent cling, 

Now thou art crushed yet lovely as before, 

The adverse winds but waft thy fragrance more. 

How small, how frail! I tread thee underfoot 
And crush thy petals in the reeking ground: 
Perchance some one in pity for thy state 
Will pick thee up in reverence profound— 

Lo, thou art pure with virtue more intense, 

Thy perfume grows from earthly detriments. 


142 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Why do we grieve ? Let each affliction bear 
A greater beauty springing from the sod, 

May sweetness well as incense from the urn, 
Which, rising high, enshrouds the throne of God. 
Envoy of Hope, this lesson I disclose— 

“Be Ever Sweet,” thou humble, fragrant rose! 

Miss Jessye, now a teacher of the piano in 
Muskogee, Oklahoma, was born in Kansas and 
was graduated from "Western University. She 
has taken prizes in oratory, poetry, and essay¬ 
writing. Yet in her early twenties, she has p 
volume of verse ready for publication. 

77. Mrs . J. W. Hammond 

Self-taught, and 
disclaiming knowl¬ 
edge of books, Mrs. 
Hammond of Omaha, 
Nebraska, contributes 
to The Monitor of 
that city verses of 
musical cadences and 
gentle beauty. Her 
response to the scenes 
and objects of nature 
is that of a poetic 
mind. The spirit of 
joy sings through her 

Mrs. j. w. Hammond ^ ses. As a rep¬ 

resentative poem the 



following may be accepted: 




THE HEART OF WOMANHOOD 143 


THE OPTIMIST 

Who would have the sky any color but blue, 

Or the grass any color but green? 

Or the flowers that bloom the summer through 
Of other color or sheen? 

How the sunshine gladdens the human heart— 
How the sound of the falling rain 
Will cause the tender tears to start, 

And free the soul from pain. 

Oh, this old world is a great old place! 

And I love each season’s change, 

The river, the brook of purling grace, 

The valley, the mountain range. 

And when I am called to quit this life, 

My feet will not spurn the sod, 

Though I leave this world with its beauty rife,—- 
There’s a glorious one with God! 

One other poem of Mrs. Hammond’s I will give 
that is beautiful alike in feeling and treatment. 

TO MY NEIGHBOR BOY 

i 

When sweet Aurora lifts her veil, 

And floods the world with rosy light, 

When morning stars, grown dim and pale, 
Proclaim the passing of the night— 

With waking bird and opening flower, 

I greet with joy the new-born day— 

For oft at this exquisite hour, 

I hear a strange new' roundelay. 


144 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


No syncopating “jazz” or “blues,” 

Insults my eager listening ear, 

But softly as the falling dews, 

The strains come stealing sweet and clear. 
With lilting grace they rise above 
The early traffic’s sordid din— 

My neighbor boy is making love 
To his beloved violin. 

Sometimes I catch a quivering note— 

An over-burdened wordless cry. 

I say: “Those are the lines he wrote 
The day he told some one goodbye.” 

But when I hear a joyous strain 
Of melody serene and clear, 

I smile and say: “All’s well again— 

The little maiden must be near!” 

But best of all I love the mood 
That prompts a soft sweet minor key. 

My longing soul forgets to brood, 

While drinking in the melody. 

My restless spirit will not rove, 

Nor lose its faith in God and men, 

The while my neighbor boy makes love 
To his beloved violin. 


III. Mrs. Alice Dunbar-Nelson 

A sonnet has already been given from Mrs. 
Dunbar-Nelson to which I think Mrs. Browning 
or Christina Rossetti might have appended her 
signature without detriment to her fame. It is 
one of a series entitled A Dream Sequence, the 


THE HEART OF WOMANHOOD 145 


rest of the sequence being as yet unpublished. 
Instead of pillaging this sequence, marring the 
effect of the individ¬ 
ual member so dislo¬ 
cated, I will take 
from her compila¬ 
tion, The Dunbar 
Speaker * so named 
for her first husband, 
the poet, two of her 
original poems. The 
first is a war poem, 
doubtless, but the oc¬ 
casion is immaterial. 

The spirit of rebellion 
against confinement 
to the petty thing 
while the something 
big calls afar might be evoked into play by any 
of a hundred situations. 



Alice Dunbar-Nelson 


I SIT AND SEW 

I sit and sew—a useless task it seems, 

My hands grown tired, my head weighed down 
w T ith dreams— 

The panoply of war, the martial tread of men, 
Grim-faced, stern-eyed, gazing beyond the ken 

* The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer, containing the best 
prose and poetic selections by and about the Negro Race, with 
programs arranged for special entertainments. Edited by Alice 
Moore Dunbar-Nelson. J. L. Nichols & Co., Naperville, Ill. 




14G NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Of lesser souls, whose eyes have not seen Death, 
Nor learned to hold their lives but as a breath— 
But—I must sit and sew. 

I sit and sew—my heart aches with desire— 

That pageant terrible, that fiercely pouring fire 
On wasted fields, and writhing grotesque things 
Once men. My soul in pity flings 
Appealing cries, yearning only to go 
There in that holocaust of hell, those fields of 
woe— 

But—I must sit and sew. 

The little useless seam, the idle patch; 

Why dream I here beneath my homely thatch, 
When there they lie in sodden mud and rain, 
Pitifully calling me, the quick ones and the slain ? 
You need me, Christ ! It is no roseate dream 
That beckons me—this pretty futile seam, 

It stifles me—God, must I sit and sew ? 

The second poem I shall give is also not unre¬ 
lated to the recent World War, and to all war: 
the lights alluded to, shining across and down 
the Delaware for miles, are the lights of the Du¬ 
Pont powder mills. It is a poem of fine sym¬ 
metry, highly poetic diction, and great allusive 
meaning—a poem that will bear and repay many 
readings, never growing less beautiful. 

THE LIGHTS AT CABNEY’S POINT 

0 white little lights at Carney’s Point, 

You shine so clear o’er the Delaware; 

When the moon rides high in the silver sky, 

Then you gleam, white gems on the Delaware. 


THE HEART 


OF WOMANHOOD 147 


Diamond circlet on a full white throat, 

You laugh your rays on a questing boat; 

Is it peace you dream in your flashing gleam, 

O’er the quiet flow of the Delaware? 

And the lights grew dim at the water’s brim, 

For the smoke of the mills shredded slow between; 

And the smoke was red, as is new bloodshed, 

And the lights went lurid ’neath the livid screen. 

0 red little lights at Carney’s Point, 

You glower so grim o’er the Delaware; 

When the moon hides low sombrous clouds below, 
Then you glow like coals o’er the Delaware. 

Blood red rubies on a throat of fire, 

You flash through the dusk of a funeral pyre; 

Are there hearth fires red whom you fear and dread 
O’er the turgid flow of the Delaware? 

And the lights gleamed gold o’er the river cold, 
For the murk of the furnace shed a copper veil; 

And the veil was grim at the great cloud’s brim, 
And the lights went molten, now hot, now pale. 

O gold little lights at Carney’s Point, 

You gleam so proud o’er the Delaware; 

When the moon grows wan in the eastering dawn, 
Then you sparkle gold points o’er the Delaware. 

Aureate filigree on a Croesus’ brow, 

You hasten the dawn on a gray ship’s prow. 

Light you streams of gold in the grim ship’s hold 
O’er the sullen flow of the Delaware? 

And the lights went gray in the ash of day, 

For a quiet Aurora brought a halcyon balm; 

And the sun laughed high in the infinite sky, 

And the lights were forgot in the sweet, sane calm. 


148 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Mrs. Dunbar-Nelson has not applied herself to 
poetry as she has to prose fiction. As a short- 
story writer she has special distinction. 

IV. Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson 

Exquisite artistry in verse, with infallible 
poetic content, is exhibited in Mrs. Georgia Doug¬ 
las Johnson’s The 
Heart of a Woman. 
It is also the saddest 
book produced by her 
race. Perfect lyrical 
notes, the most poign¬ 
ant pathos—that is 
an exact description 
of it. Triple bronze 
cannot armor anv 
breast successfully 
against its appeal. 
For the heart that 
speaks here is a heart 
that has known its 
garden of sorrows, 
its Gethsemane. This 
is the harvest of her sorrows—dreams and songs, 
of which she comments: 

The dreams of the dreamer 
Are life-drops that pass 
The break in the heart 
To the SouPs hour-glass. 



Mrs. G. D. Johnson 




THE HEART OF WOMANHOOD 149 


The songs of the singer 
Are tones that repeat 
The cry of the heart 
Till it ceases to beat. 

Neither in memory nor in dreams is there a 
refuge for the life-wounded heart of this woman: 

What need have I for memory, 

When not a single flower 
Has bloomed within life’s desert 
For me, one little hour? 

What need have I for memory, 

Whose burning eyes have met 
The corse of unborn happiness 
Winding the trail regret? 

And thus of her dreams, on the last page of 
her book: 


I am folding up my little dreams 
Within my heart to-night, 

And praying I may soon forget 
The torture of their sight. 

What are the experiences and what the con¬ 
ditions of life—what must they have been—which 
have had the tragic power to make a soul “try to 
forget it has dreamed of stars V 9 The world little 
kens what hearts in it are breaking, and why. To 
the grave the secret goes with the many, one in a 
million betrays it in a cry. But not here is it 
betrayed: 



150 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


SMOTHERED FIRES 

A woman w T ith a burning flame 
Deep covered through the years 
With ashes—ah! she hid it deep, 

And smothered it with tears. 

Sometimes a baleful light would rise 
From out the dusky bed, 

And then the woman hushed it quick 
To slumber on, as dead. 

At last the weary war was done, 

The tapers were alight, 

And with a sigh of victory 

She breathed a soft—goodnight! 

Not without hurt to itself may the oyster pro¬ 
duce its pearl. These poems from the heart of a 
woman remind me of nothing so much as a string 
of pearls. Each one is witness to a bruise or gash 
to the spirit. The lyric cry has not been more 
piercing in anything written on American soil, 
piercing all the more for the perfect restraint, 
the sure artistry. It was a heart surcharged with 
sorrow in which these pearls of poesy took shape 
from secret wounds. The heart of one woman 
speaks in them for thousands in America, else 
inarticulate. “We weep,” says the African 
proverb, “we weep in our hearts like the tortoise. ” 
Without one word or hint of race in all the book 
there is yet between its covers the unwritten, 


THE HEART OF WOMANHOOD 151 


unwritable tragedy of that borderland race which 
knows not where it belongs in the world, a truly 
homeless race in soul. A sadder book could hardly 
be. 

Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson was born in 
Atlanta, Georgia, and received her academic edu¬ 
cation in Atlanta University and a musical edu¬ 
cation at Oberlin. She now lives in Washington, 
D. C. She is at the beginning of her career as an 
author. Two other books of lyrics, under the 
titles of An Autumn Love Cycle, and Bronze* she 
has in preparation for the press at this time. 
Some of their contents have already appeared in 
magazines. These two new volumes will make an 
advance in power and in richness of content be¬ 
yond The Heart of a Woman. They will also 
provide the key to the tragic mystery concealed 
in that book. A poem that is to appear in Bronze 
will be given in a later chapter. I will here give 
another. Both have already been published in 
magazines. 

THE OCTOROON 

One drop of midnight in the dawn of life’s pulsating 
stream 

Marks her an alien from her kind, a shade amid its 
gleam. 

Forevermore her step she bends, insular, strange, apart— 
And none can read the riddle of her strangely warring 
heart. 

* Bronze has now been published. See Index of Authors. 


152 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


The stormy current of her blood beats like a mighty sea 
Against the man-wrought iron bars of her captivity. 
For refuge, succor, peace, and rest, she seeks that 
humble fold 

Whose every breath is kindliness, whose hearts are 
purest gold. 

V. Miss Angelina W. Grimke 

Not less distinctive in quality than Mrs. John¬ 
son’s, and not less beautiful in artistry, are the 

brief lyrics of Miss 
Angelina W. Grimke, 
also of the city of 
Washington. If hers 
should be called 
imagist poetry or no 
I cannot say, but I am 
certain that more 
vivid imaging of ob¬ 
jects has not been 
done in verse by any 
contemporary. This, 
too, in stanzas that 
suggest in their per¬ 
fection of form the 
work of the old lapi¬ 
daries. Nor is there 
but a surface or formal beauty. There is passion, 
there is beauty of idea, the soul of lvric poetry is 
there as well as the form. I am weighing well my 
words in giving this praise, and I know that not 





THE HEART OF WOMANHOOD 153 


one in the thousand of those who write good verse 
would deserve them. But I ask the sceptical in¬ 
dividual to re-read them after he has perused the 
poems themselves. 

I will present several without interrupting com¬ 
ment : 


DAWN 

Grey trees, grey skies, and not a star; 

Grey mist, grey hush; 

And then, frail, exquisite, afar, 

A hermit-thrush. 


A WINTER TWILIGHT 

A silence slipping around like death, 

Yet chased by a whisper, a sigh, a breath; 

One group of trees, lean, naked and cold, 

Inking their crests ’gainst a sky green-gold; 

One path that knows where the corn flowers were; 
Lonely, apart, unyielding, one fir; 

And over it softly leaning down, 

One star that I loved ere the fields went brown. 


THE PUPPET-PLAYER 

Sometimes it seems as though some puppet-player. 

A clenched claw cupping a craggy chin. 

Sits just beyond the border of our seeing, 

Twitching the strings with slow, sardonic grin. 


154 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


THE WANT OF YOU 

A hint of gold where the moon will be; 
Through the flocking clouds just a star or two 
Leaf sounds, soft and wet and hushed, 

And oh! the crying want of you. 

EL BESO 

Twilight—and you, 

Quiet—the stars; 

Snare of the shine of your teeth, 

Your provocative laughter, 

The gloom of your hair; 

Lure of you, eye and lip; 

Yearning, yearning, 

Languor, surrender; 

Your mouth, 

And madness, madness, 

Tremulous, breathless, flaming, 

The space of a sigh; 

Then awakening—remembrance, 

Pain, regret—your sobbing ; 

And again quiet—the stars, 

Twilight—and you. 

AT THE SPRING DAWN 

I watched the dawn come, 

Watched the spring dawn come. 

And the red sun shouldered his way up 
Through the grey, through the blue, 
Through the lilac mists. 

The quiet of it! The goodness of it! 


THE HEART OF WOMANHOOD 155 


And one bird awoke, sang, whirred 
A blur of moving black against the sun, 

Sang again—afar off. 

And I stretched my arms to the redness of the sun, 
Stretched to my finger tips, 

And I laughed. 

Ah! It is good to be alive, good to love, 

At the dawn, 

At the spring dawn. 

TO KEEP THE MEMORY OF CHARLOTTE 

FORTEN GRIMKE 

Still are there wonders of the dark and day; 

The muted shrilling of shy things at night, 

So small beneath the stars and moon; 

The peace, dream-frail, but perfect while the light 
Lies softly on the leaves at noon. 

These are, and these will be 
Until Eternity; 

But she who loved them well has gone away. 

Each dawn, while yet the east is veiled gray, 

The birds about her window wake and sing; 

And far away each day some lark 
I know is singing where the grasses swing; 

Some robin calls and calls at dark. 

These are, and these will be 
Until Eternity; 

But she who loved them well has gone away. 

The wild flowers that she loved down green ways stray; 
Her roses lift their wistful buds at dawn, 

But not for eyes that loved them best; 

Only her little pansies are all gone, 


156 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Some lying softly on her breast. 

And flowers will bnd and be 
Until Eternity; 

But she who loved them well has gone away. 

Where has she gone? And who is there to say? 

But this we know: her gentle spirit moves 
And is where beauty never wanes, 

Perchance by other streams, ’mid other groves; 

And to us here, ah! she remains 
A lovely memory 
Until Eternity. 

She came, she loved, and then she went away. 

The subject of these beautiful memorial verses 
was not simply in feeling but in expression also 
a poet herself. From “A June Song” written by 
her I will take a stanza in evidence: 

How shall we crown her bright young head? 
Crown it with roses, rare and red; 

Crown it with roses, creamy white, 

As the lotus bloom that sweetens the nights 
Crown it with roses as pink as shell 
In which the voices of ocean dwell. 

And a fairer queen 

Shall ne ’er be seen 

Than our lovely, laughing June. 


/ 1 . Mrs . Anne Spencer 

Who can fathom to its depths the heart of 
womanhood? Under the conditions of American 


THE HEART OF WOMANHOOD 157 

life the Negro woman’s heart offers difficulties 
peculiar to itself. These various writers—tal¬ 
ented, cultured, with 
the keen sensibilities 
of a specially sensi¬ 
tive people — have 
given us glimpses 
into some of the 
depths, not all. A 
poet of the other sex, 

Mr. McKay, with 
that divination which 
belongs to the poet, 
intimates in The Har¬ 
lem Dancer, quoted 
on page 128, that the 
index of the heart is 
not always in the oc¬ 
cupation or the face: 

But, looking at her falsely-smiling face, 

I knew her self was not in that strange place. 

No, her self was free and too noble to be smirched 
by the “passionate gaze of wine-flushed, bold-eyed 
boys.” It is a paradox that has puzzled a recent 
white novelist. Cissie Dildine, in Mr. Stribling’s 
Birthright , pilferer though she is, and sacrificer of 
her maidenhood, yet does not lose caste among her 
people. They speak affectionately of her and min¬ 
ister lovingly to her in jail, with no hint of re- 





158 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


proach. It is not other standards, as the novelist 
intimates, that we must apply, but only right 
standards, in view of circumstances. 

I am able to give here a poem that may start 
in the reader’s mind a fruitful train of reflections, 
tending toward profound ethical truth. The 
writer, Mrs. Anne Spencer of Lynchburg, Vir¬ 
ginia, in all of her work that I have seen, has 
marked originality. Her style is independent, un¬ 
conventional, and highly compressed. The poem 
which follows will fairly represent her work and 
at the same time open another avenue to the secret 
chambers of the Negro woman’s heart: 


AT THE CARNIVAL 

Gay little Girl-of-the-Diving-Tank, 

I desire a name for you, 

Nice, as a right glove fits; 

For you—who amid the malodorous 
Mechanics of this unlovely thing, 

Are darling of spirit and form. 

I know you—a glance, and what you are 
Sits-bv-the-fire in my heart. 

My Limousine-Lady knows you, or 

Why does the slant-envy of her eye mark 

Your straight air and radiant inclusive smile? 

Guilt pins a fig-leaf; Innocence is its own adorning. 
The bull-necked man knows you—this first time 
His itching flesh sees form divine and vibrant health, 
And thinks not of his avocation. 

I came incuriously— 


THE HEART OF WOMANHOOD 


159 


Set on no diversion save that my mind 
Might safely nurse its brood of misdeeds 
In the presence of a blind crowd. 

The color of life was gray. 

Everywhere the setting seemed right 
For my mood! 

Here the sausage and garlic booth 
Sent unholy incense skyward; 

There a quivering female-thing 
Gestured assignations, and lied 
To call it dancing; 

There, too, were games of chance 
With chances for none; 

But oh! Girl-of-the-Tank, at last! 

Gleaming Girl, how intimately pure and free 
The gaze you send the crowd, 

As though you know the dearth of beauty 
In its sordid life. 

We need you—my Limousine-Lady, 

The bull-necked man, and I. 

Seeing you here brave and water-clean, 
Leaven for the heavy ones of earth, 

I am swift to feel that what makes 
The plodder glad is good; and 
Whatever is good is God. 

The wonder is that you are here; 

I have seen the queer in queer places, 

But never before a heaven-fed 
Naiad of the Carnival-Tank! 

Little Diver, Destiny for you, 

Like as for me, is shod in silence ; 

Years may seep into your soul 

The bacilli of the usual and the expedient; 

I implore Neptune to claim his child to-day! 


160 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


VII. Miss Jessie Fauset 

By way of indicating the idealistic aspirations 
of the colored people I gave at the end of Chapter 

I. J. Mord Allen’s 
poem The Psalm of 
the Uplift. For the 
same purpose I will 
give here, at the end 
of this chapter, a 
poem of the very 
present day from one 
of the most accom¬ 
plished young women 
of the Negro race. 
Besides its intrinsic 
merit as a poem it has 
the further recom¬ 
mendation for a place 
in this chapter that it 
celebrates a woman 
of the black race who was the very embodiment 
of its noblest qualities—illiterate slave though she 
was. It is a splendid testimonial to her people of 
this later day that Negro literature is filled with 
tributes to Sojourner Truth. She was indeed a 
wonderful woman, altogether worthy to be ranked 
with the noble heroines of biblical story. From a 
Negro historian I take the following restrained 
account of her:* 

* A Short History of the American Negro. By Benjamin Braw- 
ley. Tlie Macmillan Company. 






THE HEART OF WOMANHOOD 161 


Two Negroes, because of tlieir unusual gifts, stood 
out with great prominence in the agitation. These 
were Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass. 
Sojurner Truth was born of slave parents about 
1798 in Ulster County, New York. She remem¬ 
bered vividly in later years the cold, wet cellar- 
room in which slept the slaves of the family to 
which she belonged, and where she was taught by 
her mother to repeat the Lord’s Prayer and to trust 
in God at all times. When in the course of gradual 
emancipation in New York she became legally free 
in 1827, her master refused to comply with the 
law. She left, but was pursued and found. Rather 
than have her go back, a friend paid for her serv¬ 
ices for the rest of the year. Then came an evening 
when, searching for one of her children that had 
been stolen and sold, she found herself a homeless 
wanderer. A Quaker family gave her lodging for 
the night. Subsequently she went to New York 
City, joined a Methodist Church, and worked hard 
to improve her condition. Later, having decided 
to leave New York for a lecturing tour through the 
East, she made a small bundle of her belongings 
and informed a friend that her name was no longer 
Isabella but Sojourner. She went on her way, lec¬ 
turing to people where she found them assembled 
and being entertained in many aristocratic 
homes. She was entirely untaught in the schools, 
but she was witty, original, and always suggestive. 
By her tact and her gift of song she kept down 
ridicule, and by her fervor and faith she won many 
friends for the anti-slavery cause. As to her name 
she said: “And the Lord gave me Sojourner be¬ 
cause I was to travel up an’ down the land showin’ 


162 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


the people their sins an’ bein’ a sign unto them. 
Afterwards I told the Lord I wanted another name, 
’cause everybody else had two names, an’ the Lord 
gave me Truth, because I was to declare the truth 
to the people.” 

The poem follows, with the author’s note on the 
saying of Sojourner Truth which occasioned it: 


ORIFLAMME 

I can remember when I was a little, young girl, 
how my old mammy would sit out of doors in the 
evenings and look up at the stars and groan, and 
I would say, ‘Mammy, what makes you groan so?’ 
And she would say, ‘I am groaning to think of my 
poor children; they do not know w T here I be and 
I don’t know where they be. I look up at the stars 
and they look up at the stars!’—Sojourner Truth. 

I think I see her sitting bowed and black, 

Stricken and seared wtih slavery’s mortal scars, 
Reft of her children, lonely, anguished, yet 
Still looking at the stars. 

Symbolic mother, we thy myriad sons, 

Pounding our stubborn hearts on Freedom’s bars, 
Clutching our birthright, fight with faces set, 

Still visioning the stars! 

"Still visioning the stars’—that is the idealism 
of the Negro. The soul of Sojourner Truth goes 
marching on, star-led. 


CHAPTER IV 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 
I. PER ASPERA 

7. Edward Smythe Jones 

It has not frequently happened in these times 
that a poet has dated a poem from a prison cell, 
or dedicated a book 
of poems to the judge 
of a police court. 

Mr. Edward Smythe 
Jones, however, has 
done this, and there 
is an interesting story 
by way of explana¬ 
tion. From the poem 
alluded to it seems 
that Mr. Jones in his 
over-mastering desire 
to drink at the Har¬ 
vard fountain of 
learning tramped out 
of the Southland up 
to Cambridge. Ar¬ 
riving travel-worn, friendless, moneyless, hungry, 
he was preparing to bivouac on the Harvard 
campus his first night in the University city, 

163 



Edward Smythe Jones 




164 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


when, being misunderstood, and not believed, he 
was apprehended as a vagabond and thrown into 
jail. A poem, however, the poem which tells this 
story, delivered him. The judge was convinced by 
it, kindly entreated the prisoner, and set him free 
to return to the academic shades. Ad astra per 
aspera. 

It was in “Cell No. 40, East Cambridge Jail, 
Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 26, 1910,” that 
the unlucky bard committed to verse this story, 
transmuting harsh experience to the joy of artistic 
production. The last half of his version runs as 
follows: 


As soon as locked within the jail, 
Deep in a ghastly cell, 

Methought I heard the bitter wail 
Of all the fiends of hell! 

”0 God, to Thee I humbly pray 
No treacherous prison snare 
Shall close my soul within for aye 
From dear old Harvard Square.” 


Just then T saw an holy Sprite 
Shed all her radiant beams, 

And round her shone the source of light 
Of all the poets’ dreams! 

I plied my pen in sober use, 

And spent each moment spare 
In sweet communion with the Muse 
I met in Harvard Square! 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 


165 


I cried: 11 Fair Goddess, hear my tale 
Of sorrow, grief and pain.” 

That made her face an ashen pale, 

But soon it glowed again! 

“ They placed me here; and this my crime, 
Writ on their pages fair;— 

‘He left his sunny native clime, 

And came to Harvard Square!’ ” 

“Weep not, my son, thy way is hard, 

Thy weary journey long— 

But thus I choose my favorite bard 
To sing my sweetest song. 

I ’ll strike the key-note of my art 
And guide with tend’rest care, 

And breathe a song into thy heart 
To honor Harvard Square. 

“I called old Homer long ago, 

And made him beg his bread 

Through seven cities, ye all know, 

His body fought for, dead. 

Spurn not oppression’s blighting sting, 
Nor scorn thy lowly fare; 

By them I’ll teach thy soul to sing 
The songs of Harvard Square. 

“I placed great Dante in exile, 

And Byron had his turns; 

Then Keats and Shelley smote the while, 
And my immortal Burns! 

But thee I’ll build a sacred shrine, 

A store of all my ware; 

By them I’ll teach thy soul to sing 
‘A place in Harvard Square.’ 


166 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


“To some a store of mystic lore, 

To some to shine a star: 

The first I gave to Allan Poe, 

The last to Paul Dunbar. 

Since thou hast waited patient, long, 

Now by my throne I swear 

To give to thee my sweetest song 
To sing in Harvard Square.” 

And when she gave her parting kiss 
And bade a long farewell, 

I sat serene in perfect bliss 
As she forsook my cell. 

Upon the altar-fire she poured 
Some incense very rare; 

Its fragrance sweet my soul assured 
I’d enter Harvard Square. 

Declining on my couch, I slept 
A sleep sweet and profound; 

O’er me the blessed angels kept 
Their vigil close around. 

With dawning’s smile, my fondest hope 
Shone radiant and fair: 

The Justice cut each chain and rope 
’Tween me and Harvard Square! 

Of all the Negro poets whose writings I have 
perused, Edward Smythe Jones is the most dif¬ 
ficult to estimate with certainty. There is an elo¬ 
quence and luxuriance of language and imagery 
in his stanzas which perplexes the critic and yet 
persuades him to repeated readings. The result, 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 


167 


however, fails to become clear. If, with his 
copiousness, the reserve of disciplined art ever 
becomes his, and his critical faculty is trained to 
match his creative, then poetry of noteworthy 
merit may be expected from him. His deeply reli¬ 
gious bent, his aspiration after the best things of 
the mind, his ambition to treat lofty themes, augur 
well for him. 

Mr. Jones’s two best poems, The Sylvan Cabin: 
A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Abraham Lin¬ 
coln and An Ode to Ethiopia: to the Aspiring 
Negro Youth , are too long for insertion here. I 
will give a shorter patriotic ode, not included in 
his book, but written, I believe, during the World 
War: 

FLAG OF THE FREE 
Flag of the free, our sable sires 
First bore thee long ago 
Into hot battles’ hell-lit fires, 

Against the fiercest foe. 

And when he shook his shaggy mien, 

And made the death-knell ring, 

Brave Attucks fell upon the Green, 

Thy stripes first crimsoning. 

Thy might and majesty we hurl, 

Against the bolts of Mars; 

And from thy ample folds unfurl 
Thy field of flaming stars! 

Fond hope to nations in distress, 

Thy starry gleam shall give; 

The stricken in the wilderness 
Shall look to thee and live. 


168 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


What matter if where Boreas roars, 

Or where sweet Zephyr smiles? 

What matter if where eagle soars, 

Or in the sunlit isles? 

Thy flowing crimson stripes shall wave 
Above the bluish brine, 

Emblazoned ensign of the brave, 

And Liberty enshrine! 

Flag of the Free, still float on high 
Through every age to come; 

Bright beacon of the azure sky, 

True light of Freedom’s dome. 

Till nations all shall cease to grope 
In vain for liberty, 

Oh, shine, last lingering star of hope 
Of all humanity! 

Is there, in all our American poetry, a more 
eloquent apostrophe to our flag than that, not 
excepting even Joseph Rodman Drake’s? Per¬ 
haps the allusion to Attucks in the first stanza will 
require a note for the white reader. Every col¬ 
ored school-child, however, knows that Crispus 
Attucks was a brave and stalwart Negro, who, in 
the van of the patriots of Boston that resisted the 
British soldiers in the so-called “Boston Mas¬ 
sacre,” March 5,1770, fell with two British bullets 
in his breast, among the first martyrs for inde¬ 
pendence : 

Thus Attucks brave, without a moment’s pause, 
Full bared his breast in Freedom’s holy cause, 
First fell and tore the code of Tyranny’s cruel 
laws— 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 169 

so writes of him this same poet in his Ode to 
Ethiopia . 

II. Raymond Garfield Dandridge 

Twelve years ago a young house-decorator in 
Cincinnati was stricken down with partial paraly¬ 
sis, since which time he has been bedfast and all 
but helpless. On this 
bed of distress he 
learned what re¬ 
sources were within 
himself, powers that 
in health he knew not 
of. The fountain of 
poetry sprang up in 
what threatened to be 
a desert life.—The 
artist-nature within 
manifested itself in a 
new realm, the realm 
of words set to tune¬ 
ful measures. This 
artisan, turned by af¬ 
fliction into a poet, is 
Raymond Garfield Dandridge. Again, ad astra 
per as per a. 

It is not great poetry that Dandridge is giving 
to the world, but it is poetry. His musings shaped 
into rhyme reach the heart. They have sweetness 
and light—“the two most precious things in the 



Raymond G. Dandridge 




170 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


world.” All the art he has acquired, untaught, 
from his reading and unaided thinking. Natu¬ 
rally one would not expect that art to be flawless. 
His initial poem, while not literally a self-descrip¬ 
tion, will serve to introduce this adopted son of 
the lyric Muse: 

THE POET 


The poet sits and dreams and dreams; 

He scans his verse; he probes his themes. 

Then turns to stretch or stir about, 

Lest, like his thoughts, his strength give out. 

Then off to bed, for he must rise 
And cord some wood, or tamp some ties, 

Or break a field of fertile soil, 

Or do some other manual toil. 


He dare not live by wage of pen, 

Most poorly paid of poor paid men, 

With shoes o’er-run, and threadbare clothes,— 
And editors among the foes 


Who mock his song, deny him bread, 
Then sing his praise when he is dead. 


A secret consolation is intimated in the following 
lines: 


TO— 


Though many are the dreams I dream, 
They're born within a single theme. 
The same kind voice I ever hear, 
Instilling faith, upbraiding fear: 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 


171 


The same consoling smile appears 
To snuff my sighs and dry my tears: 
And fondest heart, of purest gold, 

Is hers whose name I here withhold, 

And pray naught ever change my theme, 
Or wake me from my dream. 


Reflections upon the deeper meanings of life 
and death are inevitable to one situated as Mr. 
Dandridge is, provided he is given to serious re¬ 
flections at all. And the thoughts of such a person 
are apt to have value for their sincerity. Two 
brief meditations in rhyme, as we may call them, 
will represent his thinking on such themes: 


TIME TO DIE 

Black Brother, think you life so sweet 
That you would live at any price ? 

Does mere existence balance with 
The weight of your great sacrifice? 

Or, can it be you fear the grave 
Enough to live and die a slave? 

0, Brother! be it better said, 

When you are gone and tears are shed, 
That your death was the stepping stone 
Your children’s children cross’d upon. 
Men have died that men might live: 

Look every foeman in the eye! 

If necessary, your life give 

For something, ere in vain you die. 


172 NEGEO POETS AND THEIE POEMS 


ETERNITY 

Vast realm beyond the gate of death, 

Where craven scavengers and kings, 

Alike, with passing final breath, 

Relinquish claim to earthly things: 

Endless, unexplored expanse, 

Where souls, bereft of mortal clay, 

Wander at will, in peace, perchance— 
Perchance in strife, who dare would say? 

Even in the confinement to which his affliction 
has subjected him, Mr. Dandridge has felt the 
strong pulse-throbs of his people’s new kindled 
aspirations. The strength of the soul may indeed 
increase with the weakness of the body. These 
lines are surely not wanting in the passion with¬ 
out which “facts” are cold: 

FACTS 

Triumphant Sable Heroes homeward turning, 
Arrayed in medals bright, and half-healed scars, 
Have service, life, and limb been given earning 
Trophies issued at the hand of Mars? 

If your sole gain has been these 11 marks of battle, ’ ’ 
If valiant deeds insure no greater claim, 

If you are still to be the herder’s cattle, 

Then ill spilt blood fell short of Freedom’s aiim 

Democracy means more than empty letters, 

And Liberty far more than partly free; 

Yet, both are void as long as men in fetters 
Are at eclipse with Opportunity. 


173 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 

III. George Marion McClellan 

Aptly lias Mr. McClellan entitled liis book of 
poems The Path of Dreams. A dreamer is he and 
the home of his spirit is dreamland: 

Sweet-scented winds move inward from the shore, 
Blythe is the air of June with silken gleams, 

My roving fancy treads at will once more 
The golden path of dreams. 

And that path leads the poet ever back to the 
golden days of his youth, when Southern suns and 
Southern moons 
steeped his very be¬ 
ing in dreams and 
Southern birds gave 
him their melodies 
and Southern moun¬ 
tains lifted his soul 
heavenward. A wan¬ 
derer upon the earth 
he appears to have 
been, and as all wan¬ 
derers ’ hearts turn 
back to some loved 
region or spot so his 
to Dixie. Seldom has 
the longing for dis¬ 
tant, remembered 
scenes, for spring’s returning and for summer’s 
glow, been more sweetly expressed in rhyme than 
in the various poems of The Path of Dreams. And 





174 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


yet, sweeter songs than those are locked up in his 
breast, not to be sung: 

The summer sweetness fills my heart with songs 
I cannot sing, with loves I cannot speak. 

When harsh necessity imprisons him in the city 
he sighs: 

I think the sight of fields and shady lanes 
Would ease my heart of pains. 

But what contradictions poets have ever found in 
their experiences! The ministrants of joy but 
wring the cry of pain from the yearning heart. 
Lovely May is harder to endure, in exile, than 
gloomy December. The city’s discordant cries 
may be endured, bringing neither grief nor joy, 
while a bird’s carol may be exquisite torture : 

The woodlark’s tender warbling lay, 

Which flows with melting art, 

Is but a trembling song of love 
That serves to break my heart. 

Musing on whatever scene, the poet’s thoughts 
are tinged with that sadness which to every sensi¬ 
tive nature has a sweetness in it: 

The sun went down in beauty, 

While I stood musing alone, 

Stood watching the rushing river 
And heard its restless moan; 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 


175 


Longings, vague, intenable, 

So far from speech apart, 

Like the endless rush of the river, 

Went surging through my heart. 

With no less sadness or beauty, and with that 
philosophy towards which poetry ever has a bias, 
our poet of dreams thus reflects, on watching the 
ephemera that dart with glimmering wings in keen 
delight where the breezes fling the sweets of May: 

Creatures of gauze and velvet wings, 

With a day of gleams and flowers, 

Who knows— in the light of eternal things— 
Your life is less than ours? 

Weary at last, it is ours, like you, 

When our brief day is done, 

Folding our hands, to say adieu, 

And pass with the setting sun. 

One must say of George Marion McClellan: 
“Here is a finely touched spirit that responds 
deeply to the mystery and charm of mountains 
and starry skies, and that charm and mystery he 
is capable of expressing in stanzas of lyric 
beauty. ’ ’ Every page of his book will confirm for 
the reader the estimate he may have formed from 
the quotations already given. Without rifling it 
of its choicest treasures I will put before tho 
reader a few entire poems which I am sure will 
give increased delight on repeated readings: 


176 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


TO HOLLYHOCKS 

Gay hollyhocks with flaming bells 
And waving plumes, as gently swells 
The breeze upon the Summer air, 

You bind me still with magic spells 
When to the wind, in grave farewells, 

You bow in all your graces fair. 

You bring me back the childhood view, 
Where arching skies and deepest blue 
Stretch on in endless lengths above; 

To see you so awakes anew 
Long past emotions, from which grew 
My wild and first heart-throbs of love. 

There is in all your brilliant dyes, 

Your gorgeousness and azure skies, 

A joy like soothing summer rain; 

Yet in the scene there vaguely lies 
A something half akin to sighs, 

Along the borderland of pain. 

THE HILLS OF SEWANEE 

Sewanee Hills of dear delight, 

Prompting my dreams that used to be, 

I know you are waiting me still to-night 
By the Unika Range of Tennessee. 

The blinking stars in endless space, 

The broad moonlight and silvery gleams, 
To-night caress your wind-swept face, 

And fold you in a thousand dreams. 


AD ASTEA PEE ASPEEA 


177 


Your far outlines, less seen than felt, 
Which wind with hill propensities, 

In moonlight dreams I see you melt 
Away in vague immensities. 

And, far away, I still can feel 
Your mystery that ever speaks 
Of vanished things, as shadows steal 
Across your breast and rugged peaks. 

O dear blue hills, that lie apart, 

And wait so patiently down there, 
Your peace takes hold upon my heart 
And makes its burden less to bear. 


THE FEET OF JUDAS 

Christ washed the feet of Judas! 

The dark and evil passions of his soul, 

His secret plot, and sordidness complete, 

His hate, his purposing, Christ knew the whole, 
And still in love he stooped and washed his feet. 

Christ washed the feet of Judas! 

' Yet all his lurking sin was bare to him, 

His bargain with the priest, and more than this, 
In Olivet, beneath the moonlight dim, 
Aforehand knew and felt his treacherous kiss. 

Christ washed the feet of Judas! 

And so ineffable his love ’twas meet, 

That pity fill his great forgiving heart, 

And tenderly he wash the traitor’s feet, 

Who in his Lord had basely sold his part. 


178 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Christ washed the feet of Judas! 

And thus a girded servant, self-abased, 

Taught that no wrong this side the gate of heaven 
Was ever too great to wholly be effaced, 

And, though unasked, in spirit be forgiven. 

And so if we have ever felt the wrong 
Of trampled rights, of caste, it matters not, 
What e’er the soul has felt or suffered long, 

Oh, heart! this one thing should not be forgot: 
Christ washed the feet of Judas. 

IN MEMORY OF KATIE REYNOLDS, DYING 

O Death! 

If thou hast aught of tenderness, 

Be kindly in thy touch 
Of her whose fragile slenderness 
Was overburdened much 
With life. And let her seem to go to sleep, 

As often does a tired child, when it has grown 
Too tired to longer weep. 

A rose but half in bloom— 

She is too young and beautiful to die, 

But yet, if she must go, 

Let her go out as goes a sigh 
From tired life and woe. 

And let her keep, in death’s brief space 
This side the grave, the dusky beauty still 
Belonging to her face. 

She must have been 
Of those upon the trembling lyre 
Of whom the poets sung: 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 


179 


“Whom the gods love” and desire 
Fade and “die young.” 

Her life so loved on earth was brief, 

But yet withal so beautiful there is no cause, 
But in our loss, for grief. 

This poet, formerly a school principal in Louis¬ 
ville, Kentucky, is now in Los Angeles, California, 
whither he took his tubercular son—in vain— 
endeavoring to establish there a sanitarium for 
persons of his race afflicted as his son was. For 
the third time: ad astra per as per a. 


IV. Charles P. Wilson 

The following verses were written by a man in 
the Missouri State Penitentiary. He might prefer 
that his name be withheld. He will shortly go 
forth a free man and a better one—so resolved to 
be—with verses enough composed during his 
period of incarceration to make a small book: 


SOMEBODY’S CHILD 

Don’t be too quick to condemn me, 
Because I have made a bad start; 
Remember you see but the surface, 
And know not what’s in the heart. 

I may bear the marks of a sinful life, 
And I may have been a bit wild; 
But back of all remains this fact, 
That I am somebody’s child. 


180 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


My cheeks by tears may be polished, 

And my heart is no stranger to pain; 

I know what it is to be friendless, 

And to learn each affliction means gain. 

I may be out in life’s storm, 

And misfortune around me has piled; 

But kindly remember this little fact, 

That I am somebody’s child. 

Probably to-night you’ll be happy, 

In some joys or pleasures you’ll share: 

And that very same moment may find me, 
Tearfully pleading in prayer. 

So don’t be too harsh when you judge me, 
For your judgment with God will be filed; 
You would know—could you see past the 
surface— 

That I am somebody’s child. 

And so a fourth time the motto—or is it a 
proverb !—ad astra per aspera. 


V. Leon R. Harris 

Now editor of the Richmond (Indiana) Blade , 
contributor of short-stories to The Century Maga¬ 
zine, an honored citizen and the head of a re¬ 
spected family, Leon R. Harris was an orphan 
asylum’s ward. Most splendidly has he, yet in 
his early thirties, illustrated the old adage chosen 
as a heading for this chapter. His father, a rov¬ 
ing musician, took no interest in the future poet. 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 


181 


His mother died and left him almost in the cradle. 
The orphanage which became his refuge gave him 
at least food, shelter, and schooling to the fourth 
grade. Then he was given to a Kentucky family 
to be reared. It was 
virtual slavery, and 
the boy ran away 
from over-work and 
beatings. Making his 
escape to Cincinnati 
he was befriended bv 
a traveling salesman 
and began to find 
himself. At eleven 
years of age, some 
of his verses were 
printed in a Cincin 
nati daily with “Au¬ 
thor Unknown’ 7 at¬ 
tached. He now made 
his way to Berea 
and worked his way for two years in that good 
old college. Then for three years he worked his 
way in Tuskegee. 

We next find him in Iowa, married; then in 
North Carolina, teaching school; then in Ohio, 
working in steel mills. This last was his employ¬ 
ment until about two years ago. His short stories 
and poems are right out of his life. In the former 
the peonage system, prevalent in some sections of 
the South, and the cruelties of the convict labor 



Leon R. Harris 




182 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


camps are more powerfully portrayed than any¬ 
where else in American literature. The following 
poem will represent his writings in verse: 


THE STEEL MAKERS 

Filled with the vigor such jobs demand, 
Strong of muscle and steady of hand, 

Before the flaming furnaces stand 
The men who make the steel. 

’Midst the sudden sounds of falling bars, 

’Midst the clang and bang of cranes and cars, 

« 

Where the earth beneath them jerks and jars, 
They work with willing zeal. 

They meet each task as they meet each day, 
Ready to labor and full of play; 

Their faces are grimy, their hearts are gay, 
There is sense in the songs they sing; 
While stooped like priests at the holy mass, 

In the beaming light of the lurid gas, 

Their jet black shadows each other pass, 
And their hammers loudly ring. 


What do they see through the furnace door, 
From which the dazzling white lights pour ? 
Ah, more than the sizzling liquid ore 
They see as they gaze within! 

For a band of steel engirdles the earth, 
Binds men to men from their very birth, 
Through all that exists of any worth 
There courses a steely vein. 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 


183 


Steamers that ply o’er the ocean deep, 

Trains which over the mountains creep, 

The ships of the air that dart and leap 
Where the screaming eagles soar; 

The plow which produces the nation’s food, 

The bars that keep the bad from the good, 
Skyscrapers standing where forests stood, 

They see through their furnace door. 

They see the secretive submarines, 

And the noisy, whirring big machines, 

Grinding steel into numberless things 
The people know and need; 

The scissors that fashion wee babies’ clothes, 

The beds where the pallid sick repose, 

The knife that the nervy surgeon holds 
O ’er the wounds that gape and bleed. 

Yet more they see through the furnace door! 

They see the bursting hot shells pour 
On the battle-fields as in days of yore 
The Deluge waters fell. 

They see the bloody bayonet blade, 

The unsheathed sword and the hand grenade, 
The havoc, the wreck and the ruin made 
By the steel they roll and sell. 

All this through the furnace door they see 

As they work and laugh—they are full and free; 

Their steel has purchased their liberty 

From want and the tvrant’s swav. 

•/ %/ 

And just as long as their gas shall burn, 

In times of need will the people turn 
To them for their product and they shall learn 
Its value endures for aye. 


184 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


For of what they make we are servants all, 

They have bound our lives in an iron thrall, 

We do their bidding, we heed their call, 

As they work with willing zeal. 

So tap your heats with a courage bold, 

You’re worth to your world a thousand fold 
More than the men who mine her gold, 

You men who make her steel! 

Intrinsic merit is in that poem, apart from the 
circumstance of its being written by a workman 
himself. As an interpretation of the life of his 
fellow-workmen—their imaginative, inner life—it 
is a human document to be reflected upon. As for 
the artistic quality of the verses they place you in 
imagination amid the sights and sounds described 
and they have something in them suggestive of 
the steel bars the men are making. 


VI. Irvin TP. Underhill 

In what strange disguises comes ofttimes the 
call to nobler things! Our happiness not seldom 
springs out of seeming misfortune. An illustra¬ 
tion is afforded by Mr. Irvin W. Underhill, of 
Philadelphia, to whom blindness brought a more 
glorious seeing—the seeing of truth, of greater 
meaning in life, of greater beauty in the world. 
Out of this new vision springs a corresponding 
message in verse, a message not of bitterness for 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 


185 


what might to another man, in the middle years 
of his life, have seemed a bitter loss, but of 
love, and exhorta¬ 
tion, and encourage¬ 
ment. Blind, he lives 
in the Light. In his 
little book, entitled 
Daddy’s Love and 
Other Poems, are 
poems witnessing to 
a beautiful spirit, 
poems of beauty. 

Because of its sage 
counsel, however, I 
pass over some of 
these lovelier expres¬ 
sions of sentiment 
and choose a didactic 
piece: 

TO OUR BOYS 

I speak to you, my Colored boys, 

I bid you to be men, 

Don’t put yourselves upon the rack 
Like pigeons in a pen. 

Come out and face life’s problem, boys, 

With faith and courage too, 

And justify that wondrous faith, 

Abe Lincoln had in you. 

Don’t treat life as a little toy, 

A dance or a game of ball; 



Ikvin W. Underhill 





186 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Those things are all right in their place, 
But they are not life’s all. 

Life is a problem serious, 

Give it the best you have, 

Succeed in all vou undertake 
And help your brother live. 

If farming seems to be your call, 

Then take hold of the plough, 

And stick it down into the soil 
Till sweat runs down your brow. 

Then make this resolution firm: 

“I’m going to do my best, 

And stick this good old plough of mine 
Down deeper than the rest.” 

If you’re to be a carpenter 
Then train your hand and eye 
To work out angles, clean and clear 
As any metal die. 

Then read up on materials, 

On beauty and on style, 

And prove to all, the house you build 
Is sure to be worth while. 

Why sure, a banker, you can be, 

A lawyer or a priest; 

Or you can be a merchant prince, 

Their work is not the least. 

It makes no difference what you try 
If you would get the best, 

You’ll have to stick that plough of yours 
Down deeper than the rest. 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 


187 


Don’t fawn up to another man 
And beg him for a job; 
Remember that your brain and his 
Were made by the same God. 

So use it boys, with all your might, 
With faith and courage too, 

And justify that wondrous faith 
Abe Lincoln had in you. 


II. AD ASTKA 

I. James C. Hughes 

There are tragic stories of Negro aspirants for 
poetic fame that read like the old stories of Eng¬ 
lish poets in London in the days when the children 
of genius starved and died young. As typical of 
not a few there is the story of James C. Hughes, 
of Louisville, Kentucky. The Louisville Times, 
March 10, 1905, contained his picture and an 
article by Joseph S. Cotter in appreciation of his 
compositions. “This young man,” writes Cotter, 
speaking of a collection of verses and prose 
sketches which Hughes then had ready for publi¬ 
cation, “this young man has the essentials of the 
poet, and to me his work is interesting. It is 
serious, and preaches while it sings.” 

To illustrate the range and quality of Hughes 
I will quote from this article two selections, one 
in prose and one in dialect verse: 


188 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


ASPIRATION 

“True love is the same to-day as when the vestal 
virgins held their mystic lights along the path of 
virtue. Virtue wears the same vesture that she 
wore upon the ancient plain that led to fame im¬ 
mortal. Now the royal gates of honor stand ajar 
for men of courage, souls who will not time their 
spirit-lyre to suit the common chord. Our nation 
has known men who held within their palms our 
country’s destiny: and, smiling in the armor of a 
fearless truth, have thrown away their lives. 
Awake, 0 countrymen, awake, this noble flame. The 
gods will fan it, and the world shall burn with 
honor and pure love.” 

The bit of dialect verse follows, taken from a 
poem entitled Apology for Wayward Jim: 

“You has often tole us, Massy, 

We’s as free as we kin be; 

But we needs some kind o’ check, suh, 

So’s we’d keep on bein’ free. 

“Please do’ whip ole Jim dis time, suh; 
Marse, I ’no’s you’s good an ’ kind ; 

Ain’t no slabery on dis ’arth, suh, 

Like de slabery ob de mind. 

“You has often said obejence 
Wuz de key to freedom’s do’— 

When we l’arned dis golden lesson 
We wuz free foreber mo’. 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 


189 


‘ 1 But you see dese darkies ’ minds, suh, 
Ain’t so flexerbul as dat, 

Dey can’t zackly understand, suh, 

What you means by saying dat. 

’Hain’t but one compound solution 
To dis problem, as I see; 

Long’s a human soul’s a slabe, suh, 

Ain’t no way to make it free.” 

The young author of these selections, failing to 
get his book published, lost his mind and “ disap¬ 
peared from view. ’ ’ So ends his story. 


II. Leland Milton Fisher 

Another sad story, more frequently repeated 
in the lives of the writers represented in this book, 
is that of Leland Milton Fisher. First I shall 
give one of his poems, as passionately sweet a 
lyric as can be found in American literature: 

FOR YOU, SWEETHEART 

For you, sweetheart, I’d have your skies 
As bright as are your own bright eyes, 

And all your day-dreams warm and fair 
As is the sunshine in your hair. 

The Fates to you should be as kind 
As are the thoughts in your pure mind, 

And every bird I’d have impart 
Its sweetest song to you, sweetheart. 


190 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


For vou, sweetheart, I’d have each dart 
Sorrow fashions for your tender heart, 

Thrust in my own thrice happy breast, 

That yours might have unbroken rest. 

If you should fall asleep and lie 
So very still and quiet that I 
Would know your soul had slipped away 
From your divinely molded clay, 

Then, looking in your fair, sweet face 
I’d pray to God: “ In thy good grace, 

O, Father, let me sleep, nor wake 
Again on earth, for her dear sake.” 

Born in Humbolt, Tennessee, in 1875, Fisher 
died of tuberculosis, ere yet thirty years of age, 
leaving behind an unpublished volume of poems. 

7/7. W. Clarence Jordan 

In another chapter I have written of a poet 
whose birthplace was Bardstown, Kentucky. W. 
Clarence Jordan, a Negro schoolmaster of Bards¬ 
town, now dead, wrote the following lines in 
answer to the questions, so frequently asked in 
derision, which stands as its title: 

WHAT IS THE NEGRO DOING? 

As we pass along life’s higlrway, 

Day by day, 

Thousands daily ask the question, 

“What, I pray, 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 


191 


Tell me what’s the Negro doing? 

And what course is he pursuing? 

What achievements is he strewing 
By the way ? ’ ’ 

Many say he’s retrograding 
Very fast; 

Others say his glory’s fading,— 

Cannot last ; 

That his prospects now are blighted, 
That his chances have been slighted, 

This his wrongs cannot be righted. 

Time has passed. 

Friends, lift up your eyes; look higher; 
Higher still. 

There’s the vanguard of our army 
On the hill. 

You’ve been looking at the rear guard. 
Lift vour eves, look farther forward; 
Thousands are still pressing starward— 
Ever will. 


IV. Roscoe C . Jamison 

Roscoe C. Jamison was fortunate in leaving 
behind him a friend at his early death, some three 
years since, who treasured his fugitive verses 
sufficiently to gather them together, though but 
a handful, and send them out to the world in a 
little pamphlet. Fortunate also was he in an¬ 
other friend able to write his elegy: 


192 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 

Too soon is hushed his silver speech, 

The music dies upon his lute, 

The cadence falls beyond our reach; 

Too soon the Poet’s lips are mute. 

So wrote in this elegy, Lacrimae Aethiopiae, 
Charles Bertram Johnson, of this untimely dead 
singer. Hardly a score of poems are in this 

pamphlet, yet enough 
are here to reveal a 
poet in the making. 
Jamison was a better 
poet, even in these 
imperfect pieces, than 
many a writer of 
better verses. Here 
are the ardent im¬ 
pulses and here are 
the glowing ideas 
from which poetry of 
the higher order 
springs. The art, 
however, is undisci¬ 
plined, grammar, me¬ 
tre, and rhymes are 
sometimes at fault. However, bold strokes of 
poetry atone, the effects are the effects of a real 
poet. Sometimes one finds in the small collection 
a poem that is all but perfect, a production that 
might have come from a maturer craftsman. I 
venture to put him to the test in the following 
poem: 





193 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 

CASTLES IN THE AIR 

I build my castles in the air. 

How beautiful they seem to me, 

Standing in all their glory there, 

Like stars above the sea! 

I watch them with admiring eyes, 

For in them dwells life’s fondest hope: 

If they be swept from out the skies, 

In darkness I must grope. 

They hold life’s joys, life’s sweetest dreams; 

They make the weary years seem bright. 
As one guided by bright starbeams 
I struggle through the night. 

Sometimes from out the skies they fall, 

And my soul shrieks in its pain; 

But from the heights I hear Hope’s call, 
“Arise and build again.” 

What though life be with sorrow filled 
And each day brings its load of care, 

I’m happy still while I can build 

Mv castles in the air! 

•/ 

Who but will say, despite the metrical defects, 
this is a real poem? Another poem will show his 
art at a better advantage, while the pathos is of 
another kind, very touching pathos it is, too; 

A SONG 

I loved you, Dear. I did not know how much, 

Until the silence of the Grave lay cold 
Between us, and your hand I could not touch, 

And your sweet face, oh! never more behold. 


194 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 

I loved you, Dear. I did not know how true, 

Until in other eyes I found no light; 

I know—alas!—my Spirit without you 
Must drift forever in a starless night! 

A different kind of merit, the merit of intense 
reprobation of cruel arrogancy in the one race 
and of treacherous cowardice in the other, is exem¬ 
plified in The Edict. Triumphant faith, which is 
the Negro’s peculiar heritage, asserts itself in 
such a way, in the final stanza, as to lift the poem 
to the heights of moral feeling. 


THE EDICT 

All these must die before the Morning break: 

They who at God an angry fing'er shake, 

Declaring that because He made them White, 

Their race should rule the world by sacred right. 
They who deny a common Brotherhood— 

Who cry aloud, and think no Blackman good— 

The blood-cursed mob always eager to take 
The rope in hand or light the flaming stake, 

Jeering the wretch while he in death pain quakes— 
All these must die before the Morning breaks. 

All these must die before the Morning breaks: 

The Blackmen, faithless, whose loud laughter wakes 
Harsh echoes in the most unbiased places. 

They who choose vice, and scorn the gentle graces— 
Who by their manners breed contemptuous hate, 
Suggesting jim-crow laws from state to state— 


AD ASTRA PER ASPERA 


195. 


They who think on earth they may not find 
An ideal man nor woman of their kind. 

But from some other Race that ideal take— 

All these must die before the Morning break! 

We know, O Lord, that there will come a time, 
When o’er the World will dawn the Age Sublime, 
When Truth shall call to all mankind to stand 
Before Thy throne as Brothers, hand in hand, 

Be not displeased with him who this song makes— 
All these must die before the Morning breaks! 

If lyric poetry be self-revealment—and such 
it is, or it is nothing—we can learn from the fol¬ 
lowing poem how deep a sorrow at some time in 
his life this poet must have experienced: 


HOPELESSNESS 

Had you called from the fire, or from the sea, 
From ’mid the roaring flames, or dark ’ning wave. 
With eagerness I then had come to thee, 

To perish with thee if I could not save. 

But now helpless I sit and watch you die, 

There is no power can save, the doctors say; 

I lift my eyes unto the silent sky, 

And wonder why it is that mortals pray. 

The title-poem of the booklet, Negro Soldiers r 
is no doubt Jamison’s masterpiece. It is worthy 
of the universal admiration it has won from those 
who know it. 



CHAPTER V 


THE NEW FORMS OF POETRY 

The newer methods in poetry—free-verse, 
rhythmic strophes, polyphonic prose—have been 
tried with success by only a few Negroes. Of 
free-verse particularly not many noteworthy 
pieces have come from Negro poets. Well or ill, 
each may judge according to his taste. But the 
objection has been made that the Negro verse- 
makers of our time are bound by tradition, are 
sophisticated craftsmen. More independence, 
more differentness, seems to be demanded. But 
the conditions of their poetic activity seem to me 
in this demand to be lost sight of. They are as 
much the heirs of Palgrave’s Golden Treasury as 
their white contemporaries. And the Negro is said 
to be preeminently imitative—that is, responsive 
to environing example and influence. One require¬ 
ment and only one can we lay upon the Negro 
singer and that is the same we lay upon the artists 
of every race and origin. However, for artistic 
freedom he lias an authority older than free- 
verse, and that authority is not outside his own 
race. It is found in the old plantation melodies— 
rich in artistic potentiality beyond exaggeration. 

196 



NEW FORMS OF POETRY 


197 


I. FREE-VERSE 

In Negro newspapers and magazines, rarely as 
yet in books, are to be found some free-verse pro¬ 
ductions of which I will give some specimens. 
From Will Sexton I shall quote here two brief 
poems in this form and in a later chapter another 
(p. 233). His Whitemanesque manner will be re¬ 
marked. These brief pieces will suggest a poet of 
some force: 

Songs of Contemporary Ethiopia 

THE BOMB THROWER 

Down with everything black! 

Down with law and order! 

Up with the red flag! 

Up with the white South! 

I am America’s evil genius. 

THE NEW NEGRO 

Out of the mist I see a new America—a land of ideals. 
I hear the music of my fathers blended with the “Stars 
and Stripes Forever.” 

I am the crown of thorns Tyranny must bear a thousand 
years— 

I am the New Negro. 

Another vers-librist of individual quality is 
Andrea Razafkeriefo. He is a prolific contributor 
to The Negro World, the newspaper organ of the 


198 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Universal Negro Improvement Society. This 
paper regularly gives a considerable portion of 
a page of each issue to original verse contribu¬ 
tions. One of Mr. Razafkeriefo’s recent free- 
verse poems is the following, in which the style 
seems to me to be remarkably effective: 

THE NEGRO CHURCH 

That the Negro church possesses 
Extraordinary power, 

That it is the greatest medium 
For influencing our people, 

That it long has slept and faltered, 

Failed to meet its obligations, 

Are, to honest and true thinkers, 

Facts which have to be admitted. 

For these reasons there are many 
Who would have the church awaken 
And adopt the modern methods 
Of all other institutions. 

Make us more enlightened Christians, 

Teach us courtesy and English, 

Racial pride and sanitation, 

Science, thrift and Negro history. 

Yea, the preacher, like the shepherd, 

Should be leader and protector, 

And prepare us for the present 
Just as well as for the future; 

He should know more than Scriptures, 

And should ever be acquainted 
With all vital, daily subjects 
Helpful to his congregation. 


NEW FORMS OF POETRY 


199 


Give its manly, thinking preachers 
And not shouting money-makers, 

Men of intellect and vision, 

Who will really help our people: 

Men who make the church a guide-post 
To the road of racial progress, 

Who will strive to fit the Negro 
For this world as well as heaven. 

In another chapter I give one of Mr. Razaf- 
keriefo’s poems in regular stanzas of the tradi¬ 
tional type. It is but just to state that his produc¬ 
tions exhibit a great 
variety of forms 
His moods and traits, 
too, are various. 

There is the evidence 
of ardent feeling and 
strong conviction in 
most he writes. 

This poet gets his 
strange name (pro¬ 
nounced ra-zaf-ker- 
raf) from the island 
of Madagascar. His 
father, now dead, 

“falling in battle for 
Malagasy freedom, ” 

° ^ 7 Langston Hughes 

before the poet’s 

birth, was a nephew of the late queen of Mada¬ 
gascar, Ranavalona III. His mother, a colored 
American, was a daughter of a United States con- 





200 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 

sul to Madagascar. The poet was born in the city 
of Washington in 1895 and now resides in Cleve¬ 
land, Ohio. 

To a young student in Columbia University we 

are indebted for some of the most svmmetrical and 

«/ 

effective free-verse poems that have come to my 
attention. His name is Langston Hughes. For 
information about him I refer the reader to the 
first index, at the end of this book. This poem 
appeared in The Crisis, January, 1922: 

i 

THE NEGRO 


I am a Negro: 

Black as the night is black, 

Black like the depths of my Africa. 

I Ve been a slave : 

Caesar told me to keep his door-steps clean, 

I brushed the boots of Washington. 

I Ve been a worker: 

Under my hand the pyramids arose. 

I made mortar for the Woolworth building. 

I Ve been a singer: 

All the way from Africa to Georgia I carried my 
sorrow songs. 

I made ragtime. 

I’ve been a victim : 

The Belgians cut off my hands in the Congo. 
They lynch me now in Texas. 


NEW FORMS OF POETRY 


201 


I am a Negro: 

Black as the night is black, 

Black like the depths of my Africa. 

Other specimens of free-verse have been given 
on pages 67, 102, and 119. In every instance 
the poet’s choice of this form seems to me justified 
by the particular effectiveness of it. 

II. Prose Poems 



7. W. E. Burghardt DuBois 


The name of no 
Negro author is more 
widely known than 
that of W. E. Burg¬ 
hardt DuBois. Edi¬ 
tor, historian, soci¬ 
ologist, essayist, poet 
—he is celebrated in 
the Five Continents 
and the Seven Seas. 

It is in his impas¬ 
sioned prose that Du¬ 
Bois is most a poet. 

The Sends of Black 
Folk throbs con¬ 
stantly on the verge 
of poetry, while the 
several chapters of 
Backwater end with a litany, chant, or credo, 
rhapsodical in character and in free-verse form. 


W. E. B. DuBois 





202 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


In all this work Dr. DuBois is the spokesman of 
perhaps as many millions of souls as any man 
living. 

“A Litany at Atlanta/’ placed as an epilogue 
to “The Shadow of the Years’’ in Darkwater * 
should be read as the litany of a race. Modern 
literature has not such another cry of agony: 

A LITANY AT ATLANTA 

0 Silent God, Thou whose voice afar in mist and mys¬ 
tery hath left our ears an-hungered in these fearful 
days— 

Heai* us, good Lord! 

Listen to us, Thy children: our faces dark with doubt 
are made a mockery in Thy Sanctuary. With uplifted 
hands we front Thy Heaven, 0 God, crying: 

We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord! 

We are not better than our fellows, Lord; we are but 
weak and human men. When our devils do deviltry, 
curse Thou the doer and the deed,—curse them as we 
curse them, do to them all and more than ever they have 
done to innocence and weakness, to womanhood and 
home. 

Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners! 

And yet, whose is the deeper guilt? Who made these 
devils? Who nursed them in crime and fed them on 
injustice? Who ravished and debauched their mothers 
and their grandmothers? Who bought and sold their 
crime and waxed fat and rich on public iniquity? 

Thou knoivest, good God! 

^Published by Harcourt, Brace & Company, by whose kind 
permission I use this selection. 


NEW FORMS OF POETRY 


203 


Is this Thy Justice, 0 Father, that guile be easier than 
innocence and the innocent be crucified for the guilt of 
the untouched guilty? 

Justice, 0 Judge of men! 

Wherefore do we pray ? Is not the God of the Fathers 
dead? Have not seers seen in Heaven’s halls Thine 
hearsed and lifeless form stark amidst the black and roll¬ 
ing smoke of sin, where all along bow bitter forms of 
endless dead ? 

Awake, Thou that steepest! 

Thou art not dead, but flown afar, up hills of endless 
light, through blazing corridors of suns, where worlds do 
swing of good and gentle men, of women strong and free 
•—far from cozenage, black hypocrisy, and chaste pros¬ 
titution of this shameful speck of dust! 

Turn again, 0 Lord; leave us not to perish in 
our sin! 

From lust of body and lust of blood,— 

Great God, deliver us! 

From lust of power and lust of gold,— 

Great God, deliver us! 

From the leagued lying of despot and of brute,— 
Great God, deliver us! 

A city lay in travail, God our Lord, and from her loins 
sprang twin Murder and Black Hate. Red was the mid¬ 
night ; clang, crack, and cry of death and fury filled the 
air and trembled underneath the stars where church 
spires pointed silently to Thee. And all this was to sate 
the greed of greedy men who hide behind the veil of 
vengeance. 

Bend us Thine ear, 0 Lord! 


204 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


In the pale, still morning we looked upon the deed. 
We stopped our ears and held our leaping hands, but 
they—did they not wag their heads and leer and cry 
with bloody jaws: Cease from Crime! The word was 
mockery, for thus they train a hundred crimes while 
we do cure one. 

Turn again our captivity, 0 Lord! 

Behold this maimed and broken thing, dear God: it 
was an humble black man, who toiled and sweat to save 
a bit from the pittance paid him. They told him: Work 
and Rise! He worked. Did this man sin? Nay, but 
someone told how someone said another did—one whom 
he had never seen nor known. Yet for that man’s crime 
this man lieth maimed and murdered, his wife naked 
to shame, his children to poverty and evil. 

Hear us, 0 Heavenly Father! 

Doth not this justice of hell stink in Thy nostrils, 
O God? How long shall the mounting flood of innocent 
blood roar in Thine ears and pound in our hearts for 
vengeance? Pile the pale frenzy of blood-crazed brutes, 
who do such deeds, high on Thine Altar, Jehovah Jireh, 
and burn it in hell forever and forever! 

Forgive us, good Lord; we know not what 
ive say! 

Bewildered we are and passion-tossed, mad with the 
madness of a mobbed and mocked and murdered people ; 
straining at the armposts of Thy throne, we raise our 
shackled hands and charge Thee, God, by the bones 
of our stolen fathers, by the tears of our dead mothers, 
by the very blood of Thy crucified Christ: What meaneth 
this? Tell us the plan; give us the sign. 

Keep not Thou silent, 0 God. 


NEW FORMS OF POETRY 


205 


Sit not longer blind, Lord God, deaf to our prayer 
and dumb to our dumb suffering. Surely Thou, too, art 
not white, O Lord, a pale, bloodless, heartless thing! 

Ah! Christ of all the Pities! 

Forgive the thought! Forgive these wild, blasphemous 
words! Thou art still the God of our black fathers and 
in Thy Soul’s Soul sit some soft darkenings of the eve¬ 
ning, some shadowings of the velvet night. 

But whisper—speak—call, great God, for Thy silence 
is white terror to our hearts! The way, 0 God, show us 
the way and point us the path! 

Whither? North is greed and South is blood; within, 
the coward, and without, the liar. Whither? To death? 

Amen! Welcome, dark sleep! 

Whither ? To life ? But not this life, dear God, not 
this. Let the cup pass from us, tempt us not beyond our 
strength, for there is that clamoring and clawing within, 
to whose voice we would not listen, yet shudder lest we 
must,—and it is red. Ah! God! It is a red and awful 
shape. 

Selah! 

In yonder East trembles a star. 

Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord! 

Thy Will, 0 Lord, be done! 

Kyrie Eleison! 

Lord, we have done these pleading, wavering words. 

We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord! 

We bow our heads and hearken soft to the sobbing of 
women and little children. 

We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord! 


206 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Our voices sink in silence and in night. 
Hear us, good Lord . 

In night, 0 God of a godless land! 
Amen! 


In silence, O Silent God. 
Selah! 


11. Kelly Miller 



Dr. Kelly Miller is professor of sociology in 
Howard University. He has been professor of 

mathematics. He 
is the author of 
several prose 
works—able expo¬ 
sitions of aspects 
of inter-r a c i a 1 
problems. It is ru¬ 
mored that he is a 
poet. However 
that may be, his 
admirable volume 
of essays entitled 
Out of the House 
of Bondage con- 
eludes with a 
strophic c h a n t, 
highly poetical, 
and poured forth 
with the fervor of some old Celtic bard, tri- 


Kelly Miller 


umpliantun the vision of a new day dawning: 




NEW FORMS OF POETRY 


2or 


I SEE AND AM SATISFIED 

The vision of a scion of a despised and rejected race, 

the span of whose life is measured by the years of its 

Golden Jubilee, and whose fancy, like the vine that 

girdles the tree-trunk, runneth both forward and back. 

I see the African savage as he drinks his palmy wine, 
and basks in the sunshine of his native bliss, and 
is happy. 

I see the man-catcher, impelled by thirst of gold, as he 
entraps his simple-souled victim in the snares of 
bondage and death, by use of force or guile. 

I see the ocean basin whitened with his bones, and the 
ocean current running red with his blood, amidst 
the hellish horrors of the middle passage. 

I see him laboring for two centuries and a half in unre¬ 
quited toil, making the hillsides of our southland 
to glow with the snow-white fleece of cotton, and 
the valleys to glisten with the golden sheaves of 
grain. 

I see him silently enduring cruelty and torture inde¬ 
scribable, with flesh flinching beneath the sizz of 
angry whip or quivering under the gnaw of the 
sharp-toothed bloodhound. 

I see a chivalric civilization instinct with dignity, com¬ 
ity and grace rising upon pillars supported by his 
strength and brawny arm. 

I see the swarthy matron lavishing her soul in altru¬ 
istic devotion upon the offspring of her alabaster 
mistress. 

I see the haughty sons of a haughty race pouring out 
their lustful passion upon black womanhood, filling 
our land with a bronzed and tawny brood. 


208 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


I see also the patriarchal solicitude of the kindly-hearted 
owners of men, in whose breast not even iniquitous 
system could sour the milk of human kindness. 

I hear the groans, the sorrows, the sighings, the soul 
striving of these benighted creatures of God, rising 
up from the low grounds of sorrow and reaching 
the ear of Him Who regardeth man of the lowliest 
estate. 

I strain my ear to supernal sound, and I hear in the 
secret chambers of the Almighty the order to the 
Captain of Host to break his bond and set him free. 

I see Abraham Lincoln, himself a man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief, arise to execute the high 
decree. 

I see two hundred thousand black boys in blue baring 
their breasts to the bayonets of the enemy, that their 
race might have some slight part in its own deliv¬ 
erance. 

I see the great Proclamation delivered in the year of 
my birth of which I became the first fruit and 
beneficiary. 

I see the assassin striking down the great Emancipator; 
and the house of mirth is transformed into the Gol¬ 
gotha of the nation. 

I watch the Congress as it adds to the Constitution new 
words, which make the document a charter of liberty 
indeed. 

I see the new-made citizen running to and fro in the 
first fruit of his new-found freedom. 

I see him rioting in the flush of privilege "which the 
nation had vouchsafed, but destined, alas, not long 
to last. 

I see him thrust down from the high seat of political 


NEW FORMS OF POETRY 


209 


power, by fraud and force, while the nation looks 
on in sinister silence and acquiescent guilt. 

I see the tide of public feeling run cold and chilly, as 
the vial of racial wrath is wreaked upon his bowed 
and defenceless head. 

I see his body writhing in the agony of death as his 
groans issue from the crackling flames, while the 
funeral pyre lights the midnight sky with its dis¬ 
mal glare. My heart sinks with heaviness within me. 
I see that the path of progress has never taken a straight 
line, but has always been a zigzag course amid the 
conflicting forces of right and wrong, truth and 
error, justice and injustice, cruelty and mercy. 

I see that the great generous American Heart, despite 
the temporary flutter, will finally beat true to the 
higher human impulse, and my soul abounds with 
reassurance and hope. 

I see his marvelous advance in the rapid acquisition of 
knowledge and acquirement of things material, and 
attainment in the higher pursuits of life, with his 
face fixed upon that light which shineth brighter 
and brighter unto the perfect day. 

I see him who was once deemed stricken, smitten of 
God, and afflicted, now entering with universal wel¬ 
come into the patrimony of mankind, and I look 
calmly upon the centuries of blood and tears and 
travail of soul, and am satisfied. 

Ill . Charles H. Conner 

As a companion piece to this litany and this 
vision I will present another vision that for calm, 
clear beauty of style takes us immediately back 


210 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 

to Pilgrim's Progress, The author calls it a ser- 
monette, and it is one of three contained in a very 
small book entitled The Enchanted Valley, But 

the author is no 
preacher. He is a 
ship-yard worker in 
Philadelphia — I al¬ 
most said a “com¬ 
mon ’ ’ worker. But 
such workmen were 
never common, any¬ 
where, at any time. 
Charles Conner wears 
the garb and wields 
the tools of a com¬ 
mon workman, but he 
has most uncommon 
visions. He is a seer 
and a philosopher. 
He has informed me 
that there is American Indian blood in his veins. 
From the mystical and philosophical character of 
his writings, both prose and verse, I should have 
expected an East Indian strain. Twice have I 
visited his humble habitation, and each time it was 
a visit to the Enchanted Valley. 

THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT IN THE 
NATURAL WORLD 

At the dawning of a day, in a deep valley, a man 
awoke. 



Charles H. Conner 






NEW FORMS OF POETRY 


211 


It was a valley of treasures that everywhere abounded. 

He opened his eyes, and beheld the greensward be¬ 
decked with many colored jewels that sparkled in the 
light. 

His ears caught the medley of sounds, that awoke 
innumerable echoes; and with the balmy air peopled the 
valley with delights. How he came there, or why, he 
knew not; nor scarcely thought or cared. 

As he gazed upon the multitude of things, in his heart 
upsprung desire; and he gathered the treasures that lay 
around, till his arms were full, and his body decked in 
all their bright array. 

Then the sun went down behind the hill; and the vale 
grew dark; and the night air chill; and the place grew 
solemn, silent, still. 

A new thing then, to mortal ken, seemed hovering on 
the threshold near. A strange, fantastic thing, it crept, 
intangible, nearer, nearer swept, the pallid, startling face 
of Fear! 

But, the night brings sleep at last—and dreams; and 
day follows night; and sunshine follows storm through¬ 
out the length of days. But a trace of the dreams 
remains, like the faintly clinging scent that marks a 
hidden trail; and so, because of his dreams, the man’s 
desire reached out, and scaled the lofty peaks that 
walled him in. 

His pleasant valley seemed too narrow and confined. 


212 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


So, with his treasures fondly pressed to his beating 
heart, he tried to scale the heights. 

He scrambled and struggled with might and main, 
slipped and arose; and fell again and again. The spirit 
was willing, and valiant, and brave; but the treasure 
encumbered it with fatal hold; and held him bound, 
as with fold on fold a corpse is held in its lowly grave. 
So, try as he might, he could not rise much higher than 
one’s hands can reach; and one by one, his gathered 
treasures lost their brightness and their charm; as gath¬ 
ered flowers wilt and fade; and his arms weary from 
the burden that they bore, let fall and scattered lie, little 
by little, more and more of the things he had gathered 
and vainly prized. And each thing lost was so much 
lightness gained, enabling him to mount a little higher 
up the rugged steep. And so it was till night was come 
again at last; and worn and weary, he sank down to 
sleep and rest. 

And, as he slept, his arms relaxed their hold; and 
down the steep his dwindling treasures rolled, till the 
last of them found their natural level and resting place, 
the lower stretch of ground. ’Twas then a strange 
sight met my gaze, long to be remembered in the coming 

davs of trial and endeavor. 

*/ 

From out that sleeping form a luminous haze arose, 
airy and white; and glowed within it an amber fire, as 
it mounted higher, higher; and, as it arose, it had the 
appearance of a man; and its countenance was the counte¬ 
nance of him that slept. Thus up and up it winged its 
flight, until above the highest peak ’twas lost to sight. 
I pondered the matter in wonder and awe, until long 


NEW FORMS OF POETRY 


213 


past the midnight hour, how that a soul at last gained 
its longed for power to win the distant height. 

There is a kingdom of earth, and of water and of air. 

Each has its own. The heavier cannot rise above its 
level, to the next and lighter zone 

The treasures of the soul’s desire, were treasures of 
earth, whose lightest joys were too heavy and too gross 
to be sustained in the finer, rarer atmosphere; and thus 
were as a leaden weight that anchored the soul to earth, 
without its being at all aware that the things it thought 
so pleasant and so fair, were shackles to bind it hard and 
fast; and make it impossible for it to gain the region 
that instinctively it felt and knew was the rightful place 
of its abode. 


IV. William Edgar Bailey 

Yet one more prose-poem I will give, as a sort 
of coda to the series. It is taken from a paper- 
covered booklet entitled The Firstling , by William 
Edgar Bailey, from which The Slump, on page 65, 
was taken: 


TO A WILD ROSE 

The wild rose silently peeps from its uncouth habita¬ 
tion, thrives and flourishes in its glory; its fragrant 
bud bows to sip the nectar of the morning. Its delicate 
blossom blushes in the balmy breeze as the wind tells its 
tale of adoration. Performing well its part, it withers 


214 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


and decays; the chirping sparrow perches serenely on 
its boughs, only to find it wrapped in sadness and sol¬ 
emnity—yet its grief-stained leaf and weather beaten 
branches silently chant euphonic choruses in natural 
song, in solemn commemoration of its faded splendor. 

Dead, yes dead—but in thy hibernal demise dost thou 
bequeath a truth eternal as the stars. I saw thee, Rose, 
when the elf of spring hung thy floral firstling upon that 
thorny bower and robed thy ungainly form in a garb 
of green, and, Rose, thou wert sweet! 

I saw the same vernal sprite pay homage to thy high- 
browed kinsman in yonder stench-bestifled dell, and, in 
his pause of an instant, baptized its sacred being in the 
same aromatic blood. I saw thee, Rose, in thy autumnal 
desolation, when the Storm-God was wont to do thee 
harm, laid waste thy foliage, and cast at thy feet, as a 
challenge, his mantle of snow, and the Law of Non- 
resistance was still unbroken. 

Tell me thy story, Rose! Do the stars in their unweary 
watch breathe forth upon thee a special benediction from 
the sky? Or did the wind waft a drop of blood from 
the Cross to thy dell to sanctify thy being? Oh, leave 
me not, thou Redeemer of the Woods, to plod the way 
alone! My Nazarene, grant but to me a double portion 
of thy humble pride—and in my tearful grief permit 
thou me to pluck a fragrant thought from thy thorny 
bosom! 


V. R. Nathaniel Dett 

Primarily a composer and pianist, Mr. Dett 
exemplifies the close kinship of poetry and music, 


NEW FORMS OF POETRY 


215 


for in the former art as well as in the latter he 
exhibits a finely creative spirit. To speak first 
of his compositions for the piano, the following 
works are widely 
known and greatly 
admired by lovers 
of music: ‘ ‘ Mag¬ 

nolia Suite, ’ * “In 
the Bottoms Suite, ” 

‘‘Listen to the 
Lambs,’’ “Marche 
Negre,” “Arietta,” 

‘ ‘ Magic Song,’’ 

“Open Yo’ Eyes,” 
and ‘ ‘ Hampton, My 
Home by the Sea.” 

Mr. Dett took a de¬ 
gree in music at 
Oberlin Conservatory 
of Music, and a Har¬ 
vard prize in music (1920). The musical endow¬ 
ment for which his race is celebrated is cultured 
and refined in him and guided by science. The 
basis of his brilliant compositions is to be found 
in the folk melodies of his people. The musical 
genius of his people expresses itself through him 
with conscious, perfected art. To sit under the 
spell of his performance of his own pieces is to 
acquire a new idea of the Negro people. 

The same refined and exalted spirit reveals 
itself in Mr. Dett’s verse as in his music. Having 






216 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR. POEMS 


this combination of gifts, he cannot but raise 
the highest expectations. I present in this place 
a poem in blank verse of nobly contemplative 
mood, suggesting far more, as the best poems do, 
than it says: 


AT NIAGARA 

—No, no! Not tonight, my Friend, 

I may not, cannot go with you tonight. 

And think not that I love you any less 
Because this now I’d rather be alone. 

My heart is strangely torn; unwonted thoughts 

Have so infused themselves into my mind 

That altogether there is wrought in me 

A sort of hapless mood, whose phantom power 

Born perhaps of my own fantasies 

Has ta’en me. By its subtle spell 

I’m wooed and changed from what’s my natural self. 

I am so possessed I can but wish 

For nothing else save this and solitude. 

If in companionship I sought relief 
Yours indeed would be the first I’d seek. 

There is none other whom I so esteem, 

None who quite so perfect understands. 

Your presence always is a soothing balm, 

—Ne’er failing me when troubled. But tonight, 
Forgive me, Friend—I’d rather be alone. 

Leave me, let me with myself commune. 

Presently if no change come, I shall go 

Stand in the shadowed gorge, or where the moon 

Throws her silver on the rippling stream, 

List to the sounding cataract’s thundering fall, 
Or hark to spirit voices in the wind. 


NEW FORMS OF POETRY 


217 


For methinks sometimes that these strange moods 
Are heaven-sent us by the jealous God 
Who’d thus' remind us that no human love 
Can fully satisfy the longing* heart: 

Perhaps an intimation sent to souls 

That he would speak somewhat, or nearer draw. 

Therefore I’ll to Him. Talking waters, stars, 

The moon and whispering trees shall make me wise 
In what it is He’d have my spirit know. 

And Nature singing from the earth and sky 
Shall fill me with such peace, that in the morn 
I’ll be the gay glad self you’ve always known. 
Urge me no further, now you understand. 

A nobler friend than you none ever knew— 

But not this time. Tonight I ’ll be alone; 

And if from moonlit valley God should speak, 

Or in the tumbling waters sound a call, 

Or whisper in the sighing of the wind, 

He’ll find me with an undivided heart 
Patient waiting to hear; but Friend,—alone. 


CHAPTER VI 


DIALECT VERSE 

The reader of these pages may ask: ‘‘But where 
is the Negro’s humorous verse! Here is the 
pathos, where is the comedy of Negro life!” It 
may also be asked where the dialect verse is, 
and the dramatic narratives and character pieces 
that made Dunbar famous. 

The present-day Negro poets do not, as has been 
asserted, spurn dialect. Many of them have given 
a portion of their pages to character pieces in 
dialect, humorous in effect. Whether those who 
have excluded such pieces from their books have 
done so on principle or not I cannot say. In gen¬ 
eral, however, these writers are too deeply earnest 
for dialect verse, and the “broken tongue” is too 
suggestive of broken bodies and servile souls. 
But by those who have employed dialect its uses 
and effects have been well understood. Dialect, as 
is proven by Burns, Lowell, Riley, Dunbar, often 
gets nearer the heart than the language of the 
schools is able to do, and for home-spun philos¬ 
ophy, for mother-wit, for folk-lore, and for racial 
humor, for whatever is quaint and peculiar and 
native in any people, it is the only proper medium. 

Poets of the finest art from Theocritus to Tenny- 

218 


DIALECT VERSE 


219 


son have so used it. Genius here as elsewhere will 
direct the born poet and instruct him when to use 
dialect and when the language that centuries of 
tradition have refined and standardized and en¬ 
crusted with poetic associations. There is a world 
of poetic wealth in the strangely naive heart of 
the rough-schooled Negro for which the smooth- 
worn, disconsonanted language of the cabin and 
the field is beautifully appropriate. There is also 
another world of poetic wealth in the Negro of 
culture for which only the language of culture is 
adequate. To such we must say: “All things are 
yours.’ ’ 

While, as remarked, many Negro verse-writers 
have used dialect occasionally, in the ways indi¬ 
cated, Waverley Turner Carmichael has made it 
practically his one instrument of expression in his 
little book entitled From the Heart of a Folk . 
A representative piece is the following: 


MAMMY’S BABY SCARED 

Hush now, mammy’s baby scaid, 
Don ’ it cry, eat yo ’ bread; 
Nothin’ ain’t goin’ bother you, 
Does’, it bothers mammy too. 

Mammy ain’t goin’ left it ’lone 
W ’ile de chulen all are gone; 
Hush, now, don’ it cry no mo’e, 
Ain’t goin’ lay it on de flo’. 


220 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Hush now, finish out yo’ nap, 

W ’ile I make yo ’ luttle cap; 

Blessicl luttle sugar-pie, 

Hush now, baby, don’ it cry. 

Mammy’s goin ’ to make its dres ’, 

Go to sleep an ’ take yo ’ res ’; 

Hush now, don’ it cry no mo’e, 

Ain’t goin’ lay you on de Ho’. 

Carmichael was born at Snow Hill, Alabama, 
and in the Industrial Institute there received the 
rudiments of an education, which was added to 
by a summer term at Harvard. Since the book 
mentioned I have seen nothing from his pen. 

The elder Cotter in A White Song and a Black 
Song gives us in the second part several dialect 
pieces in the most successful manner. Several 
are satirical, like the following: 

THE DON’T-CARE NEGRO 

Neber min’ what’s in your cran’um 
So your collar’s high an’ true. 

Neber min’ what’s in your pocket 
So de blaekin’s on your shoe. 

Neber min’ who keeps you comp’ny 
So he halfs up what he’s tuk. 

Neber min’ what way you’s gwine 
So you’s gwine away from wuk. 

Neber min’ de race’s troubles 
So you profits by dem all. 

Neber min ’ your leaders ’ stumblin ’ 

So you he ’ps to mak ’ dem fall. 


DIALECT VERSE 


221 


Neber min’ what’s true to-morrow 
So you libes a dream to-day. 

Neber min’ what tax is levied 
So it’s not on craps or play. 

Neber min’ how hard you labors 
So you does it to de en’ 

Dat de judge is boun’ to sen’ you 
An’ your record to de “pen.” 

Neber min’ your manhood’s risin’ 

So you habe a way to stay it. 

Neber min’ folks’ good opinion 
So you have a way to slay it. 

Neber min’ man’s why an’ wharf o’ 

So de worl’ is big an’ roun. 

Neber min’ whar next you’s gwine to 
So you’s six foot under groun’. 

Raymond Garfield Dandridge in The Poet and 
Other Poems has included a handful of dialect 
pieces which prove him a master of this species 
of composition. I will select but one to repre¬ 
sent this class of his work here: 

DE INNAH PART 

I ’fess Ise ugly, big, an’ ruff, 

Mah voice is husky, mannah’s gruff; 

But, mah gal sed, “Neb mine yore hide, 

I jedged you by yore inside side”; 

An’ sed, dat she hab alwuz foun', 

De gole beneaf de surfuss groun’. 


222 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


She claims dat offen rail ruff hides 
Am boun ’ erroun’ hi 9 grade insides; 

W’ile sum dat ’pear ‘‘sharp ez a tack” 

Kinceals a heart dat’s hard an ’ black; 

An’, to prove her way ob thinking 
Gibs f o ’ zample Abeham Linkin. 

Ole “Hones’ Abe,” so lank an’ tall, 

Worn’t no pariah posin’ doll: 

Yet he stood out miles erbove 
Uddah men, in truf an’ love. 

An’ in lian’lin’ ’fairs of state, 

Proved de greates’ ob de great. 

In makin’ great men, Nature mus’ 

Fo’ got erbout de beauty dus’ 

An’ fashun dem frum nachel clay, 

De gritty kine, dat doan decay. 

But, mos’ her time she spent, I know, 

Erpon de parts dat duzen show. 

Two poems by Sterling M. Means, one in stand¬ 
ard English and one in dialect may well be placed 
here side by side for comparison as being identical 
in theme and feeling, and differing but in manner. 
They are taken from his book entitled The De¬ 
serted Cabin and Other Poems: 


THE OLD PLANTATION GRAVE 

’Tis a scene so sad and lonely, 

’Tis the site of ancient toil; 

Where our fathers bore their burdens, 
Where they sleep beneath the soil; 


DIALECT VERSE 


223 


And the fields are waste and barren, 
Where the sugar cane did grow, 
Where they tilled the corn and cotton, 
In the years of long ago; 

And along the piney hillside, 

Where the hound pursued the slave, 
In the dreary years of bondage, 

There he fills an humble grave. 


THE OLD DESERTED CABIN 

Dis ole deserted cabin 
Remin’s me ob de past; 

An’ when I gits ter t’inkin’, 

De tears comes t’ick an’ fast. 

I wunner whur’s A’nt Doshy, 

I wunner whur’s Brur Jim; 

I hyeahs no corn-songs ringin’, 

I hyeahs no Gospel hymn. 

Dis ole deserted cabin 
Am tumblin’ in decay; 

An’ all its ole-time dwellers 
Hab gone de silent way. 

Dey voices hushed in silence, 

De cabin drear an’ lone; 

An’ dey who used ter lib hyeah 
Long sense is dead an’ gone. 

J. Mord Allen’s poems and tales in dialect 
are worthy of distinction. They are executed in 


224 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


the true spirit of art. I should rank his book, 
elsewhere named, as one of the few best the Negro 
has contributed to literature. I will give here one 
specimen of his dialect verse: 


A VICTIM OF MICROBES 

NOTE.—Physicians are agreed that laziness is a microbe 
disease. 

Go en fetch er lawyer, ’Tilda, 

’Kaze I wants ter make mah will; 

Neenter min’ erbout de doctor— 

’Tain’t no use ter take er pill.— 

Chunk up de kitchen fire, 

En fetch mah easy-ch’er, 

En put er piller in it: 

Maybe I’ll git better hyeah. 

I done hyeahed de doctor say it—de doctor hisse’f said 
it— 

I’m plumb chock full o’ microbes en mah time’s 
ercomin’ quick. 

So, ’stid o’ up en fussin’ wid me fer bein’ lazy, 

Yer’d better be er nussin’ me, ’kaze I’m jes’ mighty 
sick. 

I ’spec’ I must er cotch it 
Back in Tennessee; 

’Kaze, fur ez I kin ’member, 

I wuz bad ez I could be — 

P’intly hated hoein’ ’taters— 

Couldn’t chop er stick o ’ wood— 

Couldn’t pick er sack o ’ cotton— 

Never wuz er lick o’ good. 


DIALECT VERSE 225 

En de folks dey called me lazy—my own mammy called 
me lazy 

When, ’stid o’ gwine plowin’, I wuz fishin’ in de 
creek; 

Took en tole de white folks ’bout it, en made er heap 
o’ trouble, 

En all fer want o’ meclersun—me bein’ mighty sick. 


So, now yer knows de reason 
Why I’m always loaf in ’ ’roun ’, 

When jobs is runnin’ after men 
In ev’y part o’ town. 

Dar’s patches on mah breeches, 

En you’s er sight ter see; 

Dat’s de work o’ dem same microbes, 

En it kain’t be laid on me. 

’Kaze de doctor he explained it, en de doctor’s book 
explained it, 

En some Latin words explained it, en explained it 
mighty quick— 

It’s mah lights er else mah liver, er maybe, its mah 
stomach— 

It’s somep’n in mah insides, en it sho’ has made me 
sick. 

En so, I hope yer ’ll git yerse ’f 
Er washin’, now, er two, 

Er get er job o’ scrubbin’ 

Er somp ’n else ter do; 

’Kaze dat doctor p’intly showed me 
So I couldn’t he’p but tell 
Dat dem microbes got me han’ en foot 
En I jes’ kain’t git well. 


226 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Darfo’ I hope yer’ll he’p me ter pass mah las’ days easy, 

En keep er fire in de stove en somep’n in de pan. 

I know it’s hard ter do it, en I’m sorry I kain’t he ’p yer; 

But me ’n de doctor bofe knows I’m er mighty sick 
man. 

James Weldon Johnson entitled a section of his 
book Jingles and Croons. Among these pieces, 
so disparagingly designated, are to be found some 
of the best dialect writing in the whole range of 
Negro literature. Every quality of excellence is 
there. The one piece I give is perhaps not above 
the average of a score in his book: 

MY LADY’S LIPS AM LIKE DE HONEY 

(Negro Love Song) 

Breeze a-sighin’ and a-blowin’, 

Southern summer night. 

Stars a-gleamin’ and a-glowin’, 

Moon jus shinin’ right. 

Strollin’, like all lovers do, 

Down de lane wid Lindy Lou; 

Honey on her lips to waste; 

’Speck I’m gwine to steal a taste. 

Oh, ma lady’s lips am like de honey, 

Ma lady’s lips am like de rose; 

An’ I’m jes like de little bee a-buzzin’ 

’Round de flowers wha ’ de nectah grows. 

Ma lady’s lips dey smile so temptin’, 

Ma lady’s teeth so white dey shine, 

Oh, ma lady’s lips so tantalizin’, 

Ma lady’s lips so close to mine. 


DIALECT VERSE 


227 


Bird a-whistlin’ and a-swayin’ 

In de live-oak tree; 

Seems to me he keeps a-sayin’, 

“Kiss dat gal fo’ me.” 

Look heah, Mister Mockin’ Bird, 

Gwine to take you at yo’ word; 

If I meets ma Waterloo, 

Gwine to blame it all on you. 

Oh, ma lady’s lips am like de honey, 
Ma lady’s lips am like de rose; 

An’ I’m jes like de little bee a-buzzin’ 
’Round de flowers wha’ de nectah grows. 
Ma lady’s lips dey smile so temptin’, 
Ma lady’s teeth so white dey shine, 

Oh, ma lady’s lips so tantalizin’, 

Ma lady’s lips so close to mine. 

Honey in de rose, I ’spose, is 
Put der fo ’ de bee; 

Honey on her lips, I knows, is 
Put der jes fo’ me. 

Seen a sparkle in her eye, 

Heard her heave a little sigh; 

Felt her kinder squeeze mah han’, 

’Nuff to make me understan’. 


Numerous other writers would furnish quite as 
good specimens of dialectical verse as those given. 
This medium of artistic expression is not being 
neglected, it is only made secondary and, as it 
were, incidental. By perhaps half of the poets it 
is not used. With a few, and they of no little 


228 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


talent, it is the main medium. Among this few, 
Carmichael has been named; S. Johathan Clark, 

of Dublin, Missis¬ 
sippi, and Theodore 
Henry Shackelford, 
of Jamaica Plains, 
New York, are others. 

Shackelford, with 
little schooling, dis¬ 
plays a versatility of 
talent. His own pen 
has illustrated with 
interesting realistic 
sketches his book en¬ 
titled My Country 
and Other Poems, and 
for some of his lyrics 
he has written music. 
A large proportion 
of his pieces are in dialect, much in the spirit of 
Dunbar. His best productions in standard Eng¬ 
lish are ballads. He tells a tale in verse with 
Wordsworthian simplicity and feeling. Mr. 
Clark is a school principal, with the education 
that implies. He has not yet published a book. 



Theodore Henry Shackelford 





CHAPTER VII 


THE POETRY OF PROTEST 

As elsewhere intimated there is being produced 
in America a literature of which America, as the 
term is commonly understood, is not aware. It 
is a literature of protest—protest sometimes 



Equality and Justice for All 
(Photograph of a panel of the Carl Schurz Monument) 


pathetic and prayerful, sometimes vehement and 
bitter. It comes from Negro writers, in prose 
and verse, in the various forms of fiction, drama, 
essay, editorial, and lyric. It is only with the 
lyric form that we are here concerned. Of that 

229 


230 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


we shall make a special presentation in this 
chapter. 

An artistic and restrained expression of the 
protest against irrational color prejudice, in the 
plaintive, pathetic key, is found in the following 
free-verse poem by Winston Allen: 


THE BLACK VIOLINIST 

I touched the violin, 

I, whose hand was black, 

I touched the violin 
In a grand salon. 

I touched the violin 
In a Russian palace. 

I touched the violin 
And the dream-born strains 
Chanted by the Congo 
Soared to Heaven’s chambers. 

Could I touch the violin? 

I, whose hand was black ? 

And bring to life dream music? 

Men had taunted me, 

Age-worn months: their jeers 
Snapped to bits my heartstrings, 

Snapped my inner soul; 

And the sting of living 
Tortured me the livelong day. 

Sometimes the protest runs in a lighter vein— 
as thus, in verses entitled: 


THE POETRY OF PROTEST 


231 


OLD JIM CROW 

Wherever we live, it’s right to forgive, 

It’s wrong to hold malice, we know, 

But there’s one thing that’s true, from all 
points of view, 

All Negroes hate old man Jim Crow. 

His home is in hell; he loves here to dwell; 

We meet him wherever we go; 

In all public places, where live both the races, 
You’ll always see Mr. Jim Crow. 

Be we well educated, even to genius related, 

We may have a big pile of dough, 

That cuts not a figger, you still are a nigger, 

And that is the law with Jim Crow. 

% 

—The Nashville Eye. 

But the Negro is seldom humorous these days on 
the subject of racial discriminations. Occa¬ 
sionally, in dialect verse, he still makes merry 
with the foibles or over-accentuated traits of 
certain types of the Negro. In general, however, 
the Negro verse-smith goes to his work with a 
grim aspect. He is there to smite. Sometimes the 
anvil clangs, more mightily than musically. But 
there is precedent. 

A stanza each from two poems somewhat in¬ 
tense will serve to show the character of much 
verse in Negro newspapers. The first is from 
verses entitled “Sympathy,’’ by Tilford Jones: 


232 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 

Mourn for the thousands slain, 

The youthful and the strong; 

Mourn for the last; but pray, 

For those hung by the mobbing throng. 

Pray to our God above, 

To break the fell destroyer’s sway, 

And show His saving love. 

The second is the last stanza of a poem entitled 
Shall Race Hatred Prevail? by Adeline Carter 
Watson. 

By the tears of Negro mothers, 

By the woes of Negro wives, 

By the sighs of Negro children, 

By your gallant snuffed-out lives, 

By the throne of God eternal; 

Standing hard by Heaven’s gate, 

Ye shall crush this cursed, infernal, 

Western stigma: groundless hate! 

The following two poems have a world of pathos 
for every reflecting person, in the unanswered 
question of each. The first is by Mrs. Georgia 
Douglas Johnson: 

TO MY SON 

Shall I say, “My son, you are branded in this country’s 
pageantry, 

Foully tethered, bound forever, and no forum makes 
you free?” 

Shall I mark the young light fading through your soul- 
enchanneled eye, 

As the dusky pall of shadows screen the highway of your 
sky? 


THE POETRY OF PROTEST 


233 


Or shall I with love prophetic bid you dauntlessly arise, 

Spurn the handicap that binds you, taking what the 
world denies? 

Bid you storm the sullen fortress built by prejudice and 
wrong, 

With a faith that shall not falter in your heart and on 
your tongue! 

The second is by AYill Sexton: 


TO MY LOST CHILD 

It is well, child of my heart, the rosebush drops its 
petals on your grave. 

It is well, child of my heart, the sparrow sings to you ' 
when Aurora has rouged the sky. 

In your trundle bed deep in the bosom of the earth you 
can dream pleasanter dreams than I. 

You have never felt the sting of living in a white man’s 
civilization and beneath a white man’s laws. 

You have never been forced to dance to the music of 
hate played by an idle orchestra. 

You have never toiled long hours and bowed and scraped 
for the chance to breathe. 

In your dreams you wonder in the Heaven beyond the 
skies with the God civilization rebukes. 

Tell me, little child, are you not happy in that realm no 
w T hite man can enter? 

In much of this utterance of protest, this 
arraignment of the white man’s civilization that 
rebukes God, there may be more passion than 
poesy. But out of such passion, as it were a 


234 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


rumbling of thunder, the lightning will one day 
leap. A poet born and reared in South Carolina, 
Joshua Henry Jones, Jr., appeals from man’s 
inhumanities to God’s prevailing power in pas¬ 
sionate stanzas of which this is the first, the rest 
being like: 

They’ve lynched a man in Dixie. 

O God, behold the crime. 

And midst the mad mob’s howling 
How sweet the church bells chime! 

They’ve lynched a man in Dixie. 

You say this cannot be? 

See where his lead-torn body 
Mute hangs from yonder tree. 

This or a similar lynching provoked the fol¬ 
lowing lines from another, Walter Everette 
Hawkins, in a poem entitled A Festival in Chris¬ 
tendom . After relating that the white people of 
a certain community were on their way to church 
on the Sabbath day, the poem continues: 


And so this Christian mob did turn 
From prayer to rob, to lynch and burn. 

A victim helplessly he fell 
To tortures truly kin to hell; 

They bound him fast and strung him high, 
They cut him down lest he should die 
Before their energy was spent 
In torturing to their heart’s content. 


THE POETRY OF PROTEST 


235 


They tore his flesh and broke his bones, 

And laughed in triumph at his groans; 

They chopped his fingers, clipped his ears 
And passed them round as souvenirs. 

They bored hot irons in his side 
And reveled in their zeal and pride; 

They cut his quivering flesh away 
And danced and sang as Christians may; 
Then from his side they tore his heart 
And watched its quivering fibres dart. 

And then upon his mangled frame 
They piled the wood, the oil and flame. 

Lest there be left one of his creed, 

One to perpetuate his breed; 

Lest there be one to bear his name 
Or build the stock from which he came, 

They dragged his bride up to the pyre 
And plunged her headlong in the fire, 
Full-freighted with an unborn child, 

Hot embers on her form they piled. 

And they raised a Sabbath song, 

The echo sounded wild and strong, 

A benediction to the skies 
That crowned the human sacrifice. 

Few are the poets quoted or mentioned in this 
volume who have not contributed to this literature 
of protest. James Weldon Johnson, whose pre¬ 
dominant motive is artistic creation, affords more 
than one poem in which the note of protest is 
sounded in pathos. Pathos is indeed the charac¬ 
teristic note of the great body of Negro verse. 
Aided by the two preceding extracts to an under- 


236 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


standing of Johnson’s point of view, the reader 
will appreciate the following poem, remarkable 
for that restraint which adds to the potency of 
art: 


THE BLACK MAMMY 

0 whitened head entwined with turban gay, 

0 kind black face, 0 crude, but tender hand, 

0 foster-mother in whose arms there lay 
The race whose sons are masters of the land! 

It was thine arms that sheltered in their fold, 

It w T as thine eyes that followed through the length 
Of infant days these sons. In times of old 
It w 7 as thy breast that nourished them to strength. 

So often hast thou to thy bosom pressed 
The golden head, the face and brow 7 of snow; 

So often has it ’gainst thy broad, dark breast 
Lain, set off like a quickened cameo. 

Thou simple soul, as cuddling down that babe 
With thy sw 7 eet croon, so plaintive and so wild, 
Came ne’er the thought to thee, sw 7 ift like a stab, 
That it some day might crush thine own black child ? 

There died in Port McHenry hospital, Feb¬ 
ruary, 2, 1921, a soldier-poet of the Negro race, 
who had been called 4 4 the poet laureate of the 
New Negro,’’ his name Lucian B. Watkins. He 
deserved the title, whatever may be the exact 
definition of “the New Negro.” For in his lyrics, 
of many forms, racial consciousness reached a 
degree of intensity to which only a disciplined 


THE POETRY OF PROTEST 


237 


sense of art set a limit.—He was born in a cabin 
at Chesterfield, Virginia, struggled in the usual 
way for the rudi- 
ments of book-knowl¬ 
edge, became a teach¬ 
er, then a soldier. 

His health was 
wrecked in the World 
War. He died before 
his powers were ma¬ 
tured. — Short and 
simple are the annals 
of the poet. Before 
one of his intenser 
race poems I shall 
give his last lyric cry, 
uttered but a few 
days before his lin¬ 
gering death: 

My fallen star has spent its light 
And left but memory to me; 

My day of dream has kissed the night 
Farewell, its sun no more I see; 

My summer bloomed for winter’s frost: 

Alas, I ’ve lived and loved and lost! 

What matters it to-day should earth 

Lay on my head a gold-bright crown 

Lit with the gems of royal worth 

Befitting well a king’s renown?—• 

My lonely soul is trouble-tossed, 

For I have lived and loved and lost. 





238 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Great God! I dare not question Thee— 

Thy way eternally is just; 

This seeming mystery to me 

Will be revealed, if I but trust; 

Ah, Thou alone dost know the cost 

When one has lived and loved and lost. 

The following sonnet, entitled “The New 
Negro,’’ will serve to represent much of AVat- 
kins’s verse: 

He thinks in black. His God is but the same 

John saw—with hair ‘Tike wool” and eyes “as fire”— 

Who makes the visions for which men aspire. 

His kin is Jesus and the Christ who came 
Humbly to earth and wrought His hallowed aim 
Midst human scorn. Pure is his heart’s desire; 

His life’s religion lifts; his faith leads higher. 

Love is his Church, and Union is its name. 

Lo, he has learned his own immortal role 
In this momentous drama of the hour; 

Has read aright the heavens’ Scriptural scroll 
’Bove ancient wrong—long boasting in its tower. 

Ah, he has sensed the truth. Deep in his soul 
He feels the manly majesty of power. 

The protest not infrequently takes the form of 
entreaty and appeal, sometimes the form of an 
invocation of divine wrath upon the doers of evil. 
The following poem from Watkins, unique and 
effective in form and biblical phrasing, is the 
kind of appeal that will not out of the mind: 


THE POETRY OF PROTEST 


239 


A MESSAGE TO THE MODERN PHARAOHS 
(Loose him and let him go—John 11.44) 

Loose him! ’ ’—this man on whom yon plod 
Beneath yonr heel hate-iron-shod; 

His silent sorrow troubles God— 

“Let him go!” 

There will be plagues, wars will not cease,— 
There cannot be a lasting peace 
Until this being you release— 

‘ ‘ Let him go! ” 

Each doomful kingdom—throne and crown— 
Built on the lowly fettered down, 

Shall perish—lo, the heavens frown— 

“Let him go ! ” 

Naught but a name is Liberty, 

Naught but a name—Democracy, 

Till love has made each mortal free— 

“Let him go!” 

“Loose him!” He has his part to play 
In Life’s Great Drama, day by day,— 

He has his mission, God’s own way, — 

“Let him go ! ” 

“Loose him! ’’ ’Twill be your master role, 
’Twill be your triumph and your goal: 

’Twill be the saving of your soul— 

“Let him go ! ” 



240 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS. 


Mr. Hawkins, whom I have quoted, entitled his 
book Chords and Discords. What did he mean 
by “discords”? Perhaps a disparagement of his 
muse’s efforts at music. Perhaps, and rather, 
something in the content, for the contrasts are 
sharp, the tones are piercing. These “discords” 
abound in contemporary Negro verse. Between 
the octave and the sestet of the following sonnet, 
by Mrs. Carrie W. Clifford, the discord is of the 
kind that stabs you: 

AN EASTER MESSAGE 

Now quivering to life, all nature thrills 
At the approach of that triumphant queen, 
Pink-fingered Easter, trailing robes of green 
Tunefully o’er the flower-embroidered hills, 

Her hair perfumed of myriad daffodils: 

Upon her swelling bosom now are seen 
The dream-frail lilies with their snowy sheen, 

As lightly she o’erleaps the spring-time rills. 

To black folk choked within the deadly grasp 
Of racial hate, what message does she bring 
Of resurrection and the hope of spring? 

Assurance their death-stupor is a mask— 

A sleep, with elements potential, rife. 

Ready to burst full-flowered into life. 

The Negro’s deep resentment of his wrongs has 
found its most artistic expression in the verse of 
a poet who came to us from Jamaica—Mr. Claude 
McKay. In another chapter I have given the 
reader an opportunity to judge of his merits. He 


THE POETRY OF PROTEST 


241 


will be represented here by a sonnet, written, I 
believe, shortly after the race-riot in the national 
capital, July, 1919. It has been widely reprinted 
in the Negro newspapers. 


IF WE MUST DIE 

If we must die, let it not be like hogs 
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, 

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, 
Making their mock at our accursed lot. 

If we must die—oh, let us nobly die, 

So that our precious blood may not be shed 

In vain; then even the monsters we defy 

Shall be constrained to honor us, though dead! 

Oh, kinsmen! We must meet the common foe; 
Though far outnumbered, let us still be brave, 

And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow. 
What though before us lies the open grave? 

Like men we ’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, 
Pressed to the wall, dying, but—fighting back! 

Race consciousness has recently attained an 
extraordinary pitch in the Negro, and there seems 
to be no prospect of any abatement. The verse- 
smitlis one and all have borne witness to a feeling 
of great intensity on all subjects pertaining to 
their race—the discriminations and injustices 
practised against it, the limitations that would be 
imposed upon it, the contumelies that would offend 
it. Ardent appeals are therefore made to race 
pride and ardent exhortations to race unity. The 



242 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


ancient role of the poet whereby he is identified 
with the prophet is being resumed by the enkin¬ 
dled souls of black men. With their natural gift 
for music and eloquence, with their increasing 
culture, with their building up of a poetic tradition 
now in process, with this intensification of race 
consciousness, almost anything may be expected 
of the Negro in another generation. 


CHAPTER VIII 


MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 

I. Eulogistic 

Altogether admirable is the disposition of 
Negro verse-writers to eulogize the notable per¬ 
sonages of their race, 
the men and women 
who have blazed the 
trail of advance. The 
mention of Attucks, 

Black Sampson, So¬ 
journer Truth, Har¬ 
riet Tubman, and 
others like these, all 
practically unknown 
to white readers, is 
frequent, and reveren¬ 
tial odes and sonnets 
to Douglass, Tous- 
saint L’Ouverture, 

Washington, Dunbar, 
are many and en¬ 
thusiastic. Here as elsewhere, however, I refrain 
from giving mere titles and from comments on 
productions merely cited. The reader will find 

such poems as I allude to in every poet’s volume. 

243 


■ 



Mae Smith Johnson 




244 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


I refer to this body of eulogistic verse only to sug¬ 
gest to the reader who takes up the writings of 
the American Negroes that he will learn that they 
have a heritage of heroic traditions from which 
poetry springs in every race. 

Instead of giving here such specimens of poetic 
eulogy as I have alluded to, however, I shall give 
a few poems of a more general significance, poems 
of appeal or tribute to the entire black race or 
poems of affectionate tribute to individuals. A 
free-verse poem entitled “The Negro,’’ by Mr. 
Langston Hughes, on page 200, may be recalled. 
Here is a sonnet with the same title, by Mr. 
McKay, which appeared in The People’s Pilot y 
published in Richmond, Va.: . 


THE NEGRO 

Think ye I am not fiend and savage too? 

Think ye I could not arm me with a gun 
And shoot down ten of you for every one 

Of my black brothers murdered, burnt by you? 

Be not deceived, for every deed ye do 

I could match—outmatch: am I not Afric’s son, 
Black of that black land where black deeds are done? 

But the Almighty from the darkness drew 
My soul and said: Even thou shalt be a light 
Awhile to burn on the benighted earth; 

Thy dusky face I set among the white 

For thee to prove thyself of highest worth; 

Before the world is swallowed up in night, 

To show thy little lamp; go forth, go forth! 


MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 


245 


From another Virginia magazine, also now 
defunct, The Praiseworthy Muse, of Norfolk, I 
take the following poem, signed by John J. 
Fenner, Jr.: 

RISE ! YOUNG NEGRO—RISE ! 

Ho ! we from slumber wake ! 

Rise! young Negro—rise! 

Begin our daily task anew— 

Thank God we’re spared to— 

Rise ! young Negro—rise! 

Thy task may be an humble one. 

Rise! young Negro—rise! 

However great, however small, 

Honesty and respect for all— 

Rise! young Negro—rise ! 

Each has a race to run. 

Rise! young Negro—rise! 

Enter now while we’re young, 

Though weak and just begun. 

Rise! young Negro—rise! 

Our banner flown will some day read: 

Rise! young Negro—rise! 

Victory’s ours! We’ve won the race. 

Then let us live in God by grace. 

Rise! young Negro—rise! 

In spirit and in form both these productions 
seem to be quite noteworthy. The first has in it 
something darkly and terribly ominous, while the 
second has all the fervor of religion in its youth. 




246 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


The class of poems to follow will afford a contrast. 
They will bear witness to that pride of race, per¬ 
haps, which we of the white race have commended 
to the colored people: 

DAYBREAK 

Awake! Arise! Men of my race— 

I see our morning star, 

And feel the dawn breeze on my face 
Creep inward from afar. 

I feel the dawn, with soft-like tread, 

Steal through our lingering night, 

Aglow with flame our sky to spread 
In floods of morning light. 

Arise, my men! Be wide-awake 
To hear the bugle call 
For Negroes everywhere to break 
The bands that bind us all. 

Great Lincoln, now with glory graced, 

All Godlike with the pen, 

Our chattel fetters broke and placed 
Us in the ranks of men. 

But even he could not awake 
The dead, nor make alive, 

Nor change stern Nature’s laws, which make 
The fittest to survive. 

Let every man his soul inure 
In noblest sacrifice, 

And with a heart of oak endure 
Ignoble, arrant prejudice. 


MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 


247 


Endurance, love, will yet prevail 
Against all laws of hate; 

Such armaments can never fail 
Our race its best estate. 

Let none make common cause with sin, 

Be that in honor bound, 

For they who fight with God must win 
On every battleground. 

Though wrongs there are, and wrongs have been, 
And wrongs we still must face, 

We have more friends than foes within 
The Anglo-Saxon race. 

In spite of all the Babel cries 
Of those who rage and shout, 

God’s silent forces daily rise 
To bring his will about. 

—George Marion McClellan. 

THE NEGRO WOMAN 

Were it mine to select a woman 
As queen of the hall of fame ; 

One who has fought the gamest fight 
And climbed from the depths of shame; 

I would have to give the sceptre 
To the lowliest of them all; 

She, who has struggled through the years, 

With her back against the wall. 

Wronged by the men of an alien race, 

Deserted by those of her own; 

With a prayer in her heart, a song on her lips 
She has carried the fight alone. 


248 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


In spite of the snares all around her; 

Her marvelous pluck has prevailed 
And kept her home together— 

When even her men have failed. 

What of her sweet, simple nature ? 

What of her natural grace? 

Her richness and fullness of color, 

That adds to the charm of her face ? 

Is there a woman more shapely? 

More vigorous, loving and true ? 

Yea, wonderful Negro woman 
The honor I’d give to you. 

Andrea Razafkeriefo. 

THE NEGRO CHILD 

My little one of ebon hue, 

My little one with fluffy hair, 

The wide, wide world is calling you 
To think and do and dare. 

The lessons of stern yesterdays 

That stir your blood and poise your brain 
Are etching out the simple ways 
By which you must attain. 

An echo here, a memory there, 

An act that links itself with truth; 

A vision that makes troubles air 
And toils the joy of youth. 

These be your food, your drink, your rest, 
These be your moods of drudgeful ease, 

For these be nature’s spur and test 
And heaven’s fair decrees. 


MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 


249 


My little one of ebon hue, 

My little one with fluffy hair, 

Go train your head and hands to do, 

Your head and heart to dare. 

Joseph S. Cotter, Sr, 

THE MOTHER 

The mother soothes her mantled child 
With plaintive melody, and wild; 

A deep compassion brims her eye 
And stills upon her lips the sigh. 

Her thoughts are leaping down the years, 

0 ’er branding bars, through seething tears: 

Her heart is sandaling his feet 

Adown the world’s corroding street. 

Then, with a start, she dons a smile, 

His tender yearnings to beguile; 

And only God will ever know 

The wordless measure of her woe. 

Georgia Douglas Johnson. 

The foregoing poems are generic in character, 
the following, specific. And yet there is much in 
these also that is typical and universal: 

TO A NEGRO MOTHER 

I hear you croon a little lullaby, 

I see you press his little lips to yours, 

Again old scenes come to my memory, 

As if Love’s stream had gained the long lost shores; 


250 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


As if the tidal wave of human good 

Had thrown o’er me the mantle of control; 
As if the beauty of true motherhood 

Had gained the premise of my common soul. 


The poet’s heart is yet within your breast, 

The captain’s sword unconsciously you wield; 

You know the sculptor’s masterpiece the best, 

Thro’ you the master painter is revealed. 

In you there dwells the Race’s latent power— 

The power to make, the power to break apart; 

The power to lift, the power again to lower 

That burnished shield that guards the Race’s heart 


And am I speaking as in hapless rhymes 

Of things at least that may not come to pass? 
Or is it not the spirit of the times 

All things that savour power to amass? 

Canst thou not see within thine own pure soul 
That which thy Race and all the world awaits, 
The master-leader who will reach the goal 
And hew with sword of flame the city gates? 


0 Negro mother, from the dust arise, 

Take up your task with grace and fortitude, 
Knowing the goal is not the azure skies, 

But here, and now, for thine own Race’s good. 
Create anew the captains of the past; 

Build in your soul the Ethiopian power, 

That when the mighty quest is gained at last, 

0 Negro mother, fame shall be your dower. 

Ben E. Burrell. 


MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 

TO MY GRANDMOTHER 

You ’mind me of the winter’s eve 
When low the sinking sun 

Casts soft bright rays upon the snow 
And day, now almost done, 

In silence deep prepares to leave, 

And calmly waits the signal “Go.” 

Your eyes are faded vestal lights 
That once the hearth illumed, 

Where vestal virgins vigil kept, 

And budding virtue bloomed: 

Like stars that beam on summer nights, 
Your eyes, by joy and sorrow swept. 

Asleep, one night, an angel kissed 
Your hair and on the morn 

The raven threads were silv ’ry gray; 

The angel fair had borne 

Your youth away ere it you missed 
And left old age to bless your way. 

Smile on, for when you smile, it seems 
I cannot do a wrong; 

Your smiles go with me all the while 
And make life one sweet song; 

And oft at night my troubled dream 

Grows gay at thoughts of your bright smile. 

Dark Africa with Caucasian blood 
To tinge your veins combined, 

Your proud head bowed to slavery’s thrall, 
Your hands to toil consigned. 

The Lord of hosts becalmed the flood, 

The God Omnipotent o’er all. 


251 


252 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Your ears have heard the din of war, 

The martial tramp of feet, 

Your voice has risen to your God 
In supplications sweet. 

May angels kiss each furrowed scar 
Upon your brow where care has trod. 

God bless the hands all withered now 
By age and weary care. 

God rest the feet that sought the way 
To freedom bright and fair. 

God bless thy life and e’er endow 

Thee with new strength each new-born day. 

—Mae Smith Johnson. 

EBON MAID AND GIRL OF MINE 

The sweetest charm of all the earth 
Came into being with her birth. 

All that without her we would lack 
She is in purity and black. 

The pansy and the violet, 

The dark of all the flowers met 
And gave their wealth of color in 
The sable beauty of her skin. 

Glad winds of evening are her face, 

Gentle with love and rich in grace; 

The blazing splendors of her eyes 
Are jewels from the midnight skies. 

Her hair—the darkness caught and curled, 
The ancient wonder of the world— 

Seems, in its strange, uncertain length, 

A constant crown of queenly strength. 


MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 


253 


Her smile, it is the rising moon, 

The waking of a night in June; 

Her teeth are tips of white, they gleam 
Like starlight in a happy dream. 

Her laughter is a Christmas bell 
Of ‘ ‘ peace on earth and all is well! ’ ’ 

Her voice—it is the dearest part 
Of all the glory in her heart. 

The height of joy, the deep of tears, 

The surging passion of the years, 

The mystery and dark of things, 

We feel their meanings when she sings. 

Her thoughts are pure and every one 
But makes her good to look upon. 

Daughter of God! you are divine, 

0, Ebon Maid and Girl of Mine! 

—Lucian B. Watkins. 

I will conclude this section with a very well 
rhymed tribute to two Negro bards between whom 
there was a friendship and a correspondence sim¬ 
ilar to that which existed between Burns and 
Lapraik. The writer, James Edgar French, was 
a native of Kentucky, studied for the ministry, 

and died earlv: 

*/ 

DUNBAR AND COTTER 

Dunbar and Cotter! foster-brothers, ye, 

Nurst at the breast of heav’nly minstrelsy! 

The first two Negroes who have dared to climb 
Parnassus ’ mount, and carve your names in rhyme; 


254 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Who, over icy walls of prejudice, 

Where twice ten thousand gorgon monsters hiss, 

Did scale the peak and make the steep ascent; 

For which great feat ye had small precedent. 

There were who said: “The Negro is not fit 
To write good prose, much less to rhyme with wit”; 
That nothing ever Negroes could inspire 
With Spenser’s fancy or with Shakespere’s fire: 

With Dryden’s vigor, with the ease of Pope, 

To weave the iambic pentametric rope, 

But ye, immortal sons of Afric, ye 
Have proved these charges gross absurdity; 

That old Dame Nature’s no respecter in 
Kegard to person or the hue of skin. 

Omnific God, at whose fiatic hand 
Did primogenial light deluge the land; 

Whose word supreme did out of chaos draw 
A world, and order made its guiding law, 

Bequeath’d like talents to the black and white; 

To read form’d some and others made to write; 

To govern these, and those to governed be, 

And you, great twain, endued with poesy! 

—James Edgar French. 


II. Commemorative and Occasional 

From this body of Negro verse which I have 
been describing and giving specimens of may be 
selected pieces commemorative of days and sea¬ 
sons that are quite up to the standard of similar 
pieces provided for white children in their school- 
readers. These selections will further illustrate 


MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 


255 


the variety of themes and emotional responses in 
this body of contemporary verse. 

The first selection hardly needs any allowance 
to be made for it, I think, on the score that it was 
written by a girl only sixteen years of age: 

CHRISTMAS CHEER 

’Tis Christmas time ! ’Tis Christmas time! 

Dear hallowed name of every clime! 

How each one’s heart now happy feels, 

How each one’s face fresh joy reveals 
As Christmas Day is drawing near 
The merriest day of all the year! 

Old spite and hate, the scowl, the sneer 
Are vanquished, all, by kindly cheer, 

And friendships nigh forgot and cold 
Glow warm again as once of old. 

Man’s worries cease, his hope returns, 

His breast with love now brighter burns; 

So, Christmas cheer! Oh, Christmas cheer! 

A hearty welcome to yon here. 

A welcome through the world where trod 
The source of joy, the Son of God, 

The Lowly One who from above 

First warmed cold earth with gladsome love: 

Who still proclaims with golden voice, 

* 4 Peace on earth! Rej oice ! Rej oice! ’ ’ 

Corinne E. Lewis. 

If the reader is disposed to make comparisons 
he might recall, without very great detriment to 


256 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


the following poem, Tennyson’s famous stanzas 
on the same theme. It is in the effective maimer 
of the poems already given from its author: 


GOODBYE OLD YEAR 

Goodbye, Old Year. Here comes New. 
You’ve done wonders; now you’re through; 
Adding wisdom to the ages, 

Making history’s best pages; 

Rest and slumber with the sages. 

Good-bye, Old Year. AVelcome, New. 

Goodbye, Old Year. Welcome, New. 

Off with false hopes; on with true. 

Nations raise a mighty chorus, 

Rich intoning, grand, sonorous, 

Blithe and gladsome, sad, dolorous; 
Goodbye, Old Year. Welcome, New. 

Off with false hopes. On with true. 

Goodbye, Old Year. Hail the New. 
Goodbye, hatreds. Wrongs, adieu. 

Down Life’s lane, with high or lowly, 

Weak, or strong, sin-cursed, or holy, 

Time is reaping—trudging slowly. 

Goodbye, Old Year. Hail the New. 
Goodbye, hatreds. Wrongs, adieu. 

Goodbye, Old Year. Come in, New. 

Stout hearts look for light to you. 

Rising hopes new scenes are staging; 


MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 


257 


Brotherhood our thoughts engaging. 

Dreams of Peace hide battle raging. 

Goodbye, Old Year. Come in, New. 

Stout hearts fondly look to you. 

—Joshua Henry Jones, Jr. 

The remainder of the series will be given with¬ 
out comment: 


THE MONTHS 
January 

To herald in another year, 

With rhythmic note the snowflakes fall 
Silently from their crystal courts, 

To answer Winter’s call. 

Wake, mortal! Time is winged anew! 

Call Love and Hope and Faith to fill 
The chambers of thy soul to-day; 

Life hath its blessings still! 

February 

The icicles upon the pane 

Are busy architects; they leave 
What temples and what chiseled forms 
Of leaf and flower! Then believe 
That though the woods be brown and bare, 
And sunbeams peep through cloudy veils, 
Though tempests howl through leaden skies, 
The springtime never fails! 

March 

Robin ! Robin! call the Springtime! 

March is halting on his way; 


258 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


Hear the gusts. What! snowflakes falling! 
Look not for the grass to-day. 

Ay, the wind will frisk and play, 

And we cannot say it nay. 


April 

She trips across the meadows, 

The weird, capricious elf! 

The buds unfold their prefumed cups 
For love of her sweet self; 

And silver-throated birds begin to tune their lyres, 
While wind-harps lend their strains to Nature’s 
magic choirs. 


May 

Sweet, winsome May, coy, pensive, fay, 

Comes garlanded with lily-bells, 

And apple blooms shed incense through the bow’r, 
To be her dow ’r; 

While through the leafy dells 
A wondrous concert swells 
To welcome May, the dainty fay. 


June 

Roses, roses, roses, 

Creamy, fragrant, dewy! 

See the rainbow shower! 

Was there e’er so sweet a flower? 

I’m the rose-nymph, June they call me. 
Sunset’s blush is not more fair 
Than the gift of bloom so rare, 
Mortal, that I bring to thee! 


MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 


259 


July 

Sunshine and shadow play amid the trees 
In bosky groves, while from the vivid sky 
The sun’s gold arrows fleck the fields at noon, 
Where weary cattle to their slumber hie. 
How sweet the music of the purling rill, 
Trickling adown the grassy hill! 

While dreamy fancies come to give repose 
When the first star of evening glows. 

August 

Haste to the mighty ocean, 

List to the lapsing waves; 

With what a strange commotion 
They seek their coral caves. 

From heat and turmoil let us oft return, 

The ocean’s solemn majesty to learn. 

September 

With what a gentle sound 

The autumn leaves drop to the ground; 

The many-colored dyes, 

They greet our watching eyes. 

Rosy dnd russet, how they fall! 

Throwing o’er earth a leafy pall. 

October 

The mellow moon hangs golden in the sky, 

The vintage song is over, far and nigh 
A richer beauty Nature weareth now, 

And silently, in reverence we bow 

Before the forest altars, off’ring praise 
To Him who sweetness gives to all our days. 


260 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


November 
The leaves are sere, 

The woods are drear, 

The breeze, that erst so merrily did play, 

Naught giveth save a melancholy lay; 

Yet life’s great lessons do not fail 
E’en in November’s gale. 

December 

List! List! the sleigh bells peal across the snow; 
The frost’s sharp arrows touch the earth and lo! 
How diamond-bright the stars do scintillate 
When Night hath lit her lamps to Heaven’s gate. 
To the dim forest’s cloistered arches go, 

And seek the holly and the mistletoe; 

For soon the bells of Christmas-tide will ring 
To hail the Heavenly King! 

— H. Cordelia Bay. 

WHILE APRIL BREEZES BLOW 

(A Song for Arbor Day.) 

Come, let us plant a tree today— 

Forsake your book, forsake your play, 

Bring out the spade and hie away 
While April breezes blow. 

Your life is young, and it should be 
As full of vigor as this tree, 

As fair, as upright and as free, 

While April breezes blow. 

Come, let us plant a tree to stand 
Both fair and useful in the land, 

Supremely tall and nobly grand 
A strong and trusty oak. 


MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 


261 


Dig deep and let the long roots hold 
A firm embrace within the mold: 

And may your life in truth unfold 
A strong and trusty oak. 

Come, let us plant a supple ash, 

A tree to bend when others crash, 

And stand when vivid lightnings flash, 

And clouds pour down the rain: 

So while we plant we’ll learn to bend 
And hold our ground, tho’ storms descend 
Throughout our life, and lightnings rend, 
And clouds pour down the rain. 

Then let us plant these trees between 
A graceful spruce in living green, 

That e’en in winter days is seen 
Like changeless springtime still: 

And so may you as years go by, 

And winter comes and snowflakes fly, 

Be yet in heart, and mind and eye, 

Like changeless springtime still. 

Bring out the spade and hie away, 

And let us plant a tree today 

While skies are bright and hearts are gay, 

And April breezes blow. 

In other days ’neath April skies, 

Around this tree may joyful cries 
And happy children’s songs arise, 

While April breezes blow. 

— D. T. Williamson. 


262 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


A NATION’S GREATNESS 

What makes a nation truly great? 

Not strength of arms, nor men of state, 

Nor vast domains., by conquest won, 

That knew not rise nor set of sun; 

Nor sophist’s schools, nor learned clan, 

Nor laws that bind the will of man,— 

For these have proved, in ages past, 

But futile dreams that could not last; 

And they that boast of such today, 

Are fallen, vanquished in the fray, 

Their glory mingled with the dust, 

Their archives stained with crime and lust; 
And all that breathed of pomp and pride, 

Like the untimely fig, has died. 

One thing, alone, restrains, exalts 
A nation and corrects its faults; 

One thing, alone, its life can crown 
And give its destiny renown. 

That nation, then, is truly great, 

That lives by love, and not by hate; 

That bends beneath the chastening rod, 

That owns the truth, and looks to God! 

—Edwin Garnett Riley . 


THANKSGIVING 

My heart gives thanks for many things— 
For strength to labor day by day, 

For sleep that comes when darkness wings 
With evening up the eastern way. 


MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 


263 


I give deep thanks that I’m at peace 
With kith and kin and neighbors, too; 

Dear Lord, for all last year’s increase, 

That helped me strive and hope and do. 

My heart gives thanks for many things; 

I know not how to name them all. 

My soul is free from frets and stings, 

My mind from creed and doctrine’s thrall. 

For sun and stars, for flowers and streams, 

For work and hope and rest and play, 

For empty moments given to dreams— 

For these my heart gives thanks today. 

—William Stanley Braithwaite. 

I will conclude this anthology with a selection 
from our Madagascar poet, Andrea Razafkeriefo, 
which, in a happy strain, conveys a very good 
philosophy of life—which is especially the Afro- 
American’s : 

RAINY DAYS 

On rainy days I don’t despair, 

But slip into my rocking chair; 

With my old pipe and volume rare 
And wade in fiction deep. 

The pitter-patter of the rain 
Upon the roof and window pane 
Comes like a lullaby’s refrain, 

Till soon I’m fast asleep. 

I’m grateful for the rainy days: 

’Tis only then my fancy plays, 

And mem ’ry wanders back and strays 
O’er paths I loved so dear. 




264 NEGRO POETS AND THEIR POEMS 


The lightning’s flash, the thunder’s peal 
Convinces me that God is real; 

And it’s a wondrous thing to feel 
That he is really near. 

Of the manifold and immense significance of 
poetry as a form of spiritual expression the 
Negro American has lately become profoundly 
aware, as this presentation must amply reveal. 
Not only the industrial arts are the objects of his 
ambition, according to the far-looking doctrine 
of Tuskegee, but as well those arts which are born 
of and express the spiritual traits of mankind, the 
fine arts—music, painting, sculpture, dramatics, 
and poetry. In them all the Negro is winning dis¬ 
tinction. In consequence it would seem that there 
must dawn upon us, shaped by the poems of this 
collection, a new vision of the Negro and a new 
appreciation of his spiritual qualities, his human 
character. A profounder human sympathy with 
a greatly hampered, handicapped, and humiliated 
people must also ensue from such considerations 
as these poems will induce. One of the poets here 
represented cries out, as if from a calvary, “We 
come slow-struggling up the hills of Hell. ? ? 
Another, in milder but not less appealing tone, 
cries: “We climb the slopes of life with throbbing 
hearts.” 

This appeal, expressed or implicit throughout 
the entire range of present-day Negro verse, an 
appeal sometimes angrily, sometimes plaintively 


MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 


265 


uttered, an appeal to mankind for fundamental 
justice and for human fellowship on the broad 
basis of kinship of spirit, may fittingly be the 
final note of this anthology: 

We climb the slopes of life with throbbing 
hearts . 








INDEX OF AUTHORS 









INDEX OF AUTHORS, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL 
AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 


Allen, J. Mord.— Born, Montgomery, Ala., March 26, 
1875. Schooling ceased in the middle of high-school. 
Since seventeen years of age a boiler-maker. Home, 
St. Louis, Mo. Authorship: Rhymes, Tales and 
Rhymed Tales, Crane and Company, Topeka, Kas., 
1906. 48-50, 223-226. 

Allen, Winston.— 230. 

Bailey, William Edgar.— Born, Salisbury, Mo. Edu¬ 
cated in the Salisbury public schools. Authorship: 
The Firstling, 1914. 65-67, 213-214. 

Bell, James Madison.— Born, Gallipolis, Ohio, 1826. 
Educated in night schools after reaching manhood. 
Prominent anti-slavery orator, friend of John 
Browne. Poetical Works, with biography by 
Bishop B. W. Arnett, 1901. 32-37. 

Braithwaite, William Stanley.— Born, Boston, Mass., 
1878. Mainly self-educated. His three books of ori¬ 
ginal verse are: Lyrics of Life and Love, 1904; 
The House of Falling Leaves, 1908; Sandy Star and 
Willie Gee, 1922. In Who’s Who. 105-109, 263. 

Burrell, Benjamin Ebenezer. —Born, Manchester 
Mountains, Jamaica, 1892. Descended from Man- 
dingo kings on his father’s side, and on his mother’s 
from Cromantees and Scotch. Contributor to The 
Crusader and other magazines. 249-250. 

Carmichael, Waverley Turner. —Born, Snow Hill, Ala, 

269 


270 


INDEX OF AUTHORS 


Educated in the Snow Hill Institute and Harvard 
Summer School. Authorship: From the Heart of 
a Folk, The Cornhill Company, Boston, 1918. 53, 

219-220. 

Clifford, Carrie W.—Born, Chillicothe, Ohio. Edu¬ 
cated at Columbus, 0. Has done much editorial 
and club work. Authorship: The Widening Light, 
Walter Reid Co., Boston, 1922. 240. 

Conner, Charles II.—Born, Grafton, N. Y., 1864. 
Father, a slave who found freedom by way of the 
underground railway. Mainly self-educated. Work¬ 
er in the ship-yards, Philadelphia. Authorship: 
The Enchanted Valley, published by himself, 1016 
S. Cleveland Ave., Philadelphia, 1917; contributor 
to magazines. 209-213. 

Corbett, Maurice Nathaniel.— Born, Yancey ville, 
N. C., 1859. Educated in the common schools and 
Shaw University. Served in North Carolina Legis¬ 
lature. Delegate to numerous political conventions. 
Clerk in Census Bureau, then in the Govern¬ 
ment Printing Office, Washington, D. C., until 
stricken with paralysis in 1919. Authorship : The 
Harp of Ethiopia, Nashville, 1914. This is an epic 
poem of about 7,500 rhymed lines, narrating the en¬ 
tire history of the Negro in America. It is a note¬ 
worthy undertaking. 

Corrothers, James David.— Born, Michigan, 1869. 
Educated at Northwestern University, Evanston, 
Ill., and at Bennett College, Greensboro, N. C., 
Minister of the Zion Methodist Episcopal Church. 
Died, 1919. Books: Selected Poems, 1907; The 
Dream and the Song, 1914. 37, 85-89. 

Cotter, Joseph Seamon, Jr. — Born, Louisville, Ky., 
1895. Died, 1919. Books: The Band of Gideon, 


INDEX OF AUTHORS 271 

Cornhill Company, 1918; another volume of poems 
now in press. 67-68, 70, 80-84. 

Cotter, Joseph Seamon, Sr. —Born, Bardstown, Ky., 
1861. Educated in Louisville night school (10 
months). Now school principal in Louisville, mem¬ 
ber of many societies, author of several books: A 
Rhyming, 1895; Links of Friendship, 1898; Caleb, 
the Degenerate, 1903; A White Song and a Black 
One, 1909; Negro Tales, 1912. In Who’s Who. 52, 
70-80, 220-221, 248-249. 

Dandridge, Raymond Garfield.— Born, Cincinnati, 
Ohio, 1882. Educated in Cincinnati grammar and 
high schools. First devoted to drawing and painting 
until paralytic stroke, 1911. Authorship : The Poet 
and Other Poems, Cincinnati, 1920. 54, 169-173, 

221-223. 

Dett, R. Nathaniel. —Born of Virginia parents at 
Drummondsville, Ontario, Canada, October 11, 
1882; studied in various colleges and conservatories 
in Canada and the United States. Director of music 
at Lane College, Mississippi, Lincoln Institute, Mis¬ 
souri, and at Hampton Institute, Virginia, his pres¬ 
ent position. 214-217. 

DuBois, W. E. Burghardt.— Born, Great Barrington, 
Mass., 1868. Education: Fisk University, A. B.; 
Harvard, A. B., A. M., and Ph. D.; Berlin. Profes¬ 
sor of economics and history in Atlanta University, 
1896-1910. Now editor of The Crisis, New York, 
Books: The Souls of Black Folk, 1903; Darkwater, 
1919, and numerous others. In Who’s Who. 201- 
205. 

Dunbar, Paul Laurence. —1872-1906. 37, 38-48. 

Dunbar-Nelson, Alice Ruth Moore (nee).—Born, New 
Orleans, 1875. Education: in New Orleans public 


272 


INDEX OF AUTHORS 


schools and Straight University, and later in several 
northern universities. Taught in New Orleans, 
Washington, and Brooklyn, and other cities. Mar¬ 
ried Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1898. At present Man¬ 
aging Editor of Philadelphia and Wilmington 
Advocate. Books: Violets and Other Tales , New 
Orleans, 1894; The Goodness of St. Rocque, Dodd, 
Mead & Co., 1899 ; Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence, 
1913; The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer , 1920. 
Contributor to numerous magazines. 144-148. 

Dungee, Roscoe Riley. —58. 

Este, Charles H,—57. 

Fauset, Miss Jessie. —Born, Philadelphia. Education: 
A. B., Cornell, Phi Beta Kappa; A. M., University 
of Pennsylvania; student of the Guilde Internation¬ 
ale, Paris. Interpreter of the Second Pan-African 
Congress. Literary Editor of The Crisis. 160-162. 

Fenner, John J., Jr.—245. 

Fisher, Leland Milton. —Born, Humboldt, Tenn., 1875. 
Died, under thirty years of age, at Evansville, Ind., 
where he edited a newspaper. Left behind an un¬ 
published volume of poems. 189-190. 

Fleming, Mrs. Sarah L^ Brown. — Clouds and Sun- 
shine , The Cornliill Company, Boston, 1920. 

French, James Edgar. —Born in Kentucky, studied for 
the ministry, died young. 253-254. 

Grimke, Miss Angelina Weld. —Born, Boston, Mass., 
1880. Educated in various schools of several states, 
including the Girls ’ Latin School of Boston and the 
Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. Now teacher 
of English in the Dunbar High School, Washington, 
D. C. Authorship: Rachel, a prose drama, Corn- 
hill Co., Boston, 1921; poems and short stories un¬ 
collected. 152-156. 


INDEX OF AUTHORS 


273 


Grimke, Mrs. Charlotte Forten.— Born, Philadelphia, 
1837 (nee Forten). Educated in the Normal School 
at Salem, Mass. She was a contributor to various 
magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly and The 
New England Magazine. Poems uncollected. 155- 
156. 

Hammon, Jupiter. —Born, c. 1720. “The first member 
of the Negro race to write and publish poetry in this 
country.” Extant poems: An Evening Thought, 
1760; An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley, 1778; 
A Poem for Children with Thoughts on Death, 1782; 
The Kind Master and the Dutiful Servant (date un¬ 
known. These are included in Oscar Wegelin’s 
Jupiter Hammon, American Negro Poet, New York, 
1915. 20-21, 23. 

Hammond, Mrs. J. W.—Home, Omaha, Neb. Occupa¬ 
tion : Trained nurse. 142-144. 

Harper, Mrs. Frances Ellen Watkins (nee).—Born, 
Baltimore, Md., of free parents, 1825. Died, Phila¬ 
delphia, 1911. Educated in a school in Baltimore 
for free colored children, and by her uncle, William 
Watkins. Married Fenton Harper, 1860. From 

rrr r x 

about 1851 devoted herself to the cause of freedom 
for the slaves. Authorship: Poems on Miscellaneous 
Subjects, Philadelphia, 1857; Poems, Philadelphia, 
1900. 26-32. 

Harris, Leon R.—Born, Cambridge, Ohio, 1886. First 
years spent in an orphanage, where he got the rudi¬ 
ments of education. Then w 7 as farmed out in Ken¬ 
tucky. Running off, he made his way to Berea 
College and later to Tuskegee, getting two or three 
terms at each. Now editor of the Richmond (Indi¬ 
ana) Blade. Authorship : numerous short stories in 


274 


INDEX OF AUTHORS 


magazines; The Steel Makers and Other War Poems 
(pamphlet), 1918. 63-64, 180-184. 

Hawkins, Walter Everette. —Born, Warren ton, N. C., 
1886. Educated in public schools. Since 1913 in 
the city post-office of Washington D. C. Author¬ 
ship : Chords and Discords, Richard G. Badger, 
Boston, 1920. 62, 119, 126, 234-235, 240. 

Hill, Leslie Pinckney. —Born, Lynchburg, Va., 1880. 
B. A. and M. A. of Harvard. Teacher at Tuskegee; 
formerly principal of Manassas (Va.) Industrial 
School; now principal of Cheyney (Pa.) State Nor¬ 
mal School. Authorship : The Wings of Oppression, 
The Stratford Company, Boston, 1921. 52, 131-138. 

Horton, George M.—Born, North Carolina. Author¬ 
ship : Poems by a* Slave, 1829. Poetical Works, 
1845. Several volumes from 1829 to 1865. 25. 

Hughes, James C.—187-189. 

Hughes, Langston. —Born, Joplin, Mo., February 1, 
1902. Ancestry, Negro and Indian; grand-nephew 
of Congressman John M. Langston. Education: 
High School, Cleveland, O., one year at Columbia 
University; traveled in Mexico and Central Amer¬ 
ica. Contributor to magazines. Home, Jones’s 
Point, N. Y. Contributor to The Crisis. 199-201. 

Jamison, Roscoe C.—Born, Winchester, Tenn., 1886; 
died at Phoenix, Ariz., 1918. Educated at Fisk 
University. Authorship : Negro Soldiers and Other 
Poems, William F. McNeil, South St. Joseph, Mo., 
1918. 191-195. 

Jessye, Miss Eva Alberta.— Born, Coffeyville, Kan., 
1897. Educated in the public schools of several 
western states; graduated from Western University, 
1914. Director of music in Morgan College, Balti- 


INDEX OF AUTHORS 275 

more, 1919. Now teacher of piano, Muskogee, Okla. 
68-69, 139-142. 

Johnson, Adolphus.— The Silver Chord, Philadelphia, 
1915. 104-105. 

Johnson, Charles Bertram.— Born, Callao, Mo., 1880. 
Educated at Western College, Macon, Mo.; two 
summers at Lincoln Institute; correspondence 
courses, and a term in the University of Chicago. 
Educator and preacher. Authorship: Wind Whis¬ 
perings (a pamphlet), 1900; The Mantle of Dunbar 
and Other Poems (a pamphlet), 1918; Songs of My 
People, 1918. Home, Moberly, Mo. 52, 63, 95-99. 
Johnson, Fenton. —Born, Chicago, 1888. Educated in 
the public schools and University of Chicago. 
Authorship: A Little Dreaming, Chicago, 1914; 
Visions of the Dusk, New York, 1915. Songs of the 
Soil, New York, 1916. Editor of The Favorite 
Magazine, Chicago. 64-65, 99-103. 

Johnson, Mrs. Georgia Douglas. —Born, Atlanta, Ga. 
Educated at Atlanta University, and in music at 
Oberlin. Home, Washington, D. C. Books: The 
Heart of a Woman, the Cornhill Co., Boston, 1918; 
Bronze, B. J. Brimmer Co., Boston, 1922. 61, 148- 

152, 232-233, 249. 

Johnson, James Weldon. —Born, Jacksonville, Fla., 
1871. Educated at Atlanta and Columbia Universi¬ 
ties. United States consul in Venezuela and Nica¬ 
ragua. Author of numerous works. Original verse : 
Fifty Years and Other Poems, the Cornhill Com¬ 
pany, Boston, 1917. In Who’s Who. 54, 90-95, 226- 
227, 235-236. 

Johnson, Mrs. Mae Smith (nee).—Born, Alexandria, 
Va., 1890. Now Secretary at the Good Samaritan 
Orphanage, Newark, N. J. Contributor of verse to 


276 


INDEX OF AUTHORS 


papers and magazines. The grandmother of the 
poet escaped from slavery in Virginia. She lived 
to be ninety-two years old. 57, 251-252. 

Jones, Edward Smythe.— Authorship: The Sylvan 
Cabin and Other Verse, Sherman, French & Co., 
Boston, 1911. 163-169. 

Jones, Joshua Henry, Jr.— Born, Orangeburg, S. C., 
1876. Educated Central High School, Columbus, 
0., Ohio State University, Yale, and Brown. Has 
served on the editorial staffs of the Providence News, 
The Worcester Evening Post, Boston Daily Adver¬ 
tiser and Boston Post. At present he is on the staff 
of the Boston Telegram. Authorship : The Heart of 
the World, the Stratford Company, Boston, 1919; 
Poems of the Four Seas, the Cornhill Company, 
Boston, 1921. 113-119, 234, 256-257. 

Jones, Tilford.— 231-232. 

Jordan, W. Clarence.— 190-191. 

Jordan, Winifred Virginia.— Contributor to The Crisis. 
56. 

Lee, Mary Effie.— Contributor to The Crisis. 56. 

Lewis, Corinne E.—Student in the Dunbar High School, 
Washington, D. C. 255. 

Lewis, Ethyl.—60-61. 

McClellan, George Marion.— Born, Belfast, Tenn., 
1860. Educated at Fisk University, Nashville, 
Tenn., of which he became financial agent. Later, 
principal of the Paul Dunbar School, Louisville, 
Ivy. Authorship: The Path of Dreams, John P. 
Morton, Louisville, Ky., 1916. 55, 173-179, 246-247. 

McKay, Claude.— Born, Jamaica, 1889. Has resided in 
the United States ten or eleven years. Till lately on 
the editorial staff of the Liberator. Books: Constah 


INDEX OF AUTHORS 277 

Ballads, London, 1912; Spring m New Hampshire, 
London, 1920. 126-131, 241-242, 244. 

Margetson, George Reginald.— Born, 1877, at St. Kitts, 
B. W. I. 109-111. 

Means, Sterling M.—Authorship: The Deserted Cabin 
and Other Poems, A. B. Caldwell, publisher, Atlanta, 
1915. 222-223. 

Miller, Kelly. —Born, Winsboro, S. C., 1863. Edu¬ 
cated at Howard and Johns Hopkins Universities. 
Degrees: A. M. and LL. D. Professor and dean in 
Howard University. Books: Race Adjustment, 
1904; Out of the House of Bondage, Neale Publish¬ 
ing Co., New York, 1914. In Who’s Who. 206-209. 

Moore, William.— Contributor to The Favorite Maga¬ 
zine. 111-112. 

Ray, H. Cordelia.— Authorship: Poems, The Grafton 
Press, New York, 1910. 257-260. 

Razafkeriefo, Andrea.— Born, Washington, D. C., 
1895* of Afro-American mother and Madagascaran 
father. Educated only in public elementary 
school. Regular verse contributor to The Crusader 
and The Negro World. 197-198, 247-248, 263-264. 

Reason, Charles L.—Born in New York in 1818. Pro¬ 
fessor at New York Central College in New York 
and head of the Institute for Colored Youth in 
Philadelphia. Authorship: Freedom, New York, 
1847. 23-24. 

Riley, Edwin Garnett. —Contributor to many news¬ 
papers and magazines. 262. 

Sexton, Will.— Contributor to magazines. 197, 233- 
234. 

Shackelford, Otis. —Educated at Lincoln Institute, 
Jefferson City, Mo. Authorship: Seeking the Best 
(prose and verse). The verse part of this volume 


278 


INDEX OF AUTHORS 


contains a poem of some 500 lines entitled “Bits of 
History in Verse, or A Dream of Freedom Realized, ” 
modeled on Hiawatha. 

Shackelford, Theodore Henry.— Born, Windsor Can¬ 
ada, 1888. Grandparents were slaves in southern 
states. At twelve years of age had had only three 
terms of school. At twenty-one entered the Indus¬ 
trial Training School, Downington, Pa., and gradu¬ 
ated four years later. Studied a while at the Phila¬ 
delphia Art Museum. Authorship: My Country 
and Other Poems, Philadelphia, 1918. Died, 
Jamaica, N. Y., February 5, 1923. 228. 

Spencer, Mrs. Anne.— Born, Bramwell, W. Va., 1882. 
Educated at the Virginia Seminary, Lynchburg, Va. 
Contributor to The Crisis. 156-159. 

Underhill, Irvin W.—Born, Port Clinton, Pa., May 1, 
1868. In boyhood, with irregular schooling, assisted 
his father, who was captain of a canal boat. At the 
age of 37 suddenly lost his sight. Author of Dad¬ 
dy’s Love and Other Poems, Philadelphia. Home, 
Philadelphia. 184-187. 

Watkins, Lucian B.—Born, Chesterfield, Virginia, 1879. 
Educated in public schools of Chesterfield, and at 
the Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute, Peters¬ 
burg. First teacher, then soldier. Books: Voices of 
Solitude, 1907, Donohue & Co., Chicago; Whisper¬ 
ing Winds, in manuscript. Died, 1921. 59, 236-239, 
252-253. 

Watson, Adeline Carter.— 232. 

Wheatley, Phillis. —Born in Africa, 1753. Brought 
as a slave to Boston, where she died in 1784. Many 
editions of her poems in her lifetime. Poems and 
Letters, New York, 1916. 23-24. 

Wiggins, Lida Keck.— Authorship: The Life and 


INDEX OF AUTHORS 


279 


Works of Paul Laurence Dunbar, J. L. Nichols & 
Company, Naperville, Ill. 41. 

Whitman, Albery A.—Born in Kentucky in 1857. Be¬ 
gan life as a Methodist minister. Authorship: The 
Rape of Florida, Not a Man and Yet a Man , and 
Twasnita’s Seminoles. 32, 35-36. 

Williamson, D. T.— 260-261. 

Wilson, Charles P.—Born in Iowa of Kentucky par¬ 
ents, 1885. Printer and theatrical performer. 179- 

180 . 




INDEX OF TITLES 


Apology for Wayward Jim.—James C. Hughes 
Ask Me Why I Love You.—W. E. Hawkins . 

A Song.—Roscoe C. Jamison. 

As the Old Year Passed.—William Moore . 

At the Closed Gate of Justice.—J. D. Corrothers . 
At the Carnival.—Mrs. Anne Spencer . 

At Niagara.—R. Nathaniel Dett. 

At the Spring Dawn.—Miss Angelina W. Grimke . 
Autumn Sadness.—W. S. Braithwaite . . . . 

Band of Gideon, The.—Joseph S. Cotter, Jr. . 
Black Mammy, The.—J. W. Johnson . . . . 

Black Violinist, The.—Winston Allen . . . . 

Bomb Thrower, The.—Will Sexton. 

Boy and the Ideal, The.—Joseph S. Cotter, Sr. 

Brothers.—J. H. Jones, Jr. 

Castles in the Air.—Roscoe C. Jamison . 
Christmas Cheer.—Miss Corinne E. Lewis . 
Chicken in the Bread Tray .—Folk Song . 

Compensation.—Joseph S. Cotter, Jr. 

Counting Out.—J. Mord Allen. 

Credo.—W. E. Hawkins. 

Dawn.—Miss Angelina W. Grimke. 

Daybreak.—G. M. McClellan. 

Death of Justice, The.—W. E. Hawkins . . . 

De Innah Part.—R. G. Dandridge. 

Don’t-Care Negro, The.—Joseph S. Cotter, Sr. 
Dream and the Song, The.—J. D. Corrothers . . 

Dreams of the Dreamer, The.—Mrs. Georgia Doug¬ 
las Johnson . 

Dunbar.—J. D. Corrothers. 

Dunbar and Cotter.—J. E. French . . . . 

281 


PAGE 

188 

125 

193 

112 

88 

158 

216 

154 

108 

83 

236 

230 

197 

74 

118 

193 

255 

15 

82 

48 

119 

153 

246 

123 

221 

220 

85 

148 

37 

253 


r 





282 INDEX OF TITLES 

PAGE 

Easter Message, An.—Mrs. Carrie W. Clifford . . 240 

Ebon Maid.—L. B. Watkins.252 

Edict, The.—Roscoe C. Jamison.194 

El Beso.—Miss Angelina W. Grimke .... 154 

Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary Eyes. 

—Paul Laurence Dunbar.41 

Eternity.—R. G. Dandridge.172 

Expectancy.—William Moore.112 

Facts.—R. G. Dandridge.172 

Fattening Frogs for Snakes .—Folk Song . . . 117 

Feet of Judas, The.—G. M. McClellan .... 177 

Flag of the Free.—E. W. Jones.167 

For You Sweetheart.—L. M. Fisher .... 189 

Foscati.—W. S. Braithwaite.108 

Goodbye, Old Year.—J. H. Jones, Jr.256 

Harlem Dancer, The.—Claude McKay .... 128 

Heart of the World, The.—J. H. Jones, Jr. . . 117 

Hero of the Road.—W. E. Hawkins.122 

Hills of Sewanee, The.—G. M. McClellan . . . 176 

Hopelessness.—Roscoe C. Jamison.195 

If We Must Die.—Claude McKay.241 

In Bondage.—Claude McKay.129 

In Memory of Katie Reynolds.—G. M. McClellan . 178 

In Spite of Death.—W. E. Hawkins .... 62 
In the Heart of a Rose.—G. M. McClellan ... 54 
I Played on David’s Harp.—Fenton Johnson . . 65 

I See and Am Satisfied.—Kelly Miller .... 207 

I Sit and Sew.—Mrs. Alice Dunbar-Nelson . . 145 

It’s All Through Life.—W. T. Carmichael . . 53 

It’s a Long Way.—W. S. Braithwaite .... 106 

I’ve Loved and Lost.—L. B. Watkins .... 237 

Juba .—Folk Song .16 

Life.—Paul Laurence Dunbar.43 

Life of the Spirit, The.—Charles H. Conner . . 210 

Light of Victory.—George Reginald Margetson . 110 


Lights at Carney’s Point, The.—Mrs. Alice Dun¬ 
bar-Nelson .146 








INDEX OF TITLES 283 

PAGE 

Litany of Atlanta, A.—W. E. B. DuBois ... 202 

Loneliness.—Miss Winifred Virginia Jordan . . 56 

Lynching, The.—Claude McKay.128 

Mammy's Baby Scared.—W. T. Carmichael . . 219 

Mater Dolorosa.—L. P. Hill.134 

Message to the Modern Pharaohs.—L. B. Watkins . 239 

Months, The.—Miss H. Cordelia Ray .... 257 

Mother, The.—Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson . . 249 

My Lady’s Lips.—J. W. Johnson.226 

My People.—C. B. Johnson.95 

Mulatto’s Song, The.—Fenton Johnson . . . 101 

Mulatto to His Critics, The.—Joseph S. Cotter, Jr. 67 
Nation’s Greatness, A.—Edwin G. Riley . . . 262 

Negro, The.—Langston Hughes.200 

Negro, The.—Claude McKay.244 

Negro Child, The.—Joseph S. Cotter, Sr. . . . 248 

Negro Church, The.—Andrea Razafkeriefo . . 198 

Negro Woman, The.—Andrea Razafkeriefo . . 247 

Negro Singer, The.—J. D. Corrothers .... 89 

New Day, The.—Fenton Johnson.102 

New Negro, The.—Will Sexton.197 

New Negro, The.—L. B. Watkins.236 

Octoroon, The.—Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson . 151 

Ode to Ethiopia.—Paul Laurence Dunbar ... 44 

Oh, My Way and Thy Way.—Joseph S. Cotter, Sr. 81 
Old Plantation Grave, The.—S. M. Means . . . 222 

Ole Deserted Cabin, De.—S. M. Means .... 223 

Old Friends.—C. B. Johnson.97 

Old Jim Crow.—Anonymous.231 

Optimist, The.—Mrs. J. W. Hammond . . . 143 

Oriflamme.—Miss Jessie Fauset.162 

O Southland.—J. W. Johnson.92 

Peace.—Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson .... 61 

Plaint of the Factory Child, The.—Fenton Johnson 101 

Poet, The.—R. G. Dandridge.170 

Prayer of the Race That God Made Black, A.— 

L. B. Watkins.59 







284 


INDEX OF TITLES 


PAGE 


■'■•A : 


WJL 


Psalm of the Uplift, The.—J. Mord Allen .. 
Puppet-Player, The.—Miss Angelina W. Grimke 
Rain Song, A.—C. B. Johnson . 

Rainy Days.—Andrea Razafkeriefo . 

Rain Music.—Joseph S. Cotter, Jr. . 

Rise! Young Negro—Rise!—John J. Fenner, Jr. 

Sandy Star.—W. S. Braithwaite 
Self-Determination.—L. P. Hill . 

She Hugged Me.— Folk Song .... 

Singer, The.—Miss Eva A. Jessye . 

Slump, The.—W. E. Bailey .... 

Smothered Fires.—Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson 
Somebody’s Child.—Charles P. Wilson 
So Much.—C. B. Johnson .... 

Soul and Star.—C. B. Johnson . 

Southern Love Song, A.—J. H. Jones, Jr 
Spring in New Hampshire.—Claude McKay . 

Spring with the Teacher.—Miss Eva A. Jessye 
Steel Makers, The.—Leon R. Harris 

Sunset.—Miss Mary Effie Lee. 

Thanking God.—W. S. Braithwaite 
Thanksgiving.—W. S. Braithwaite .... 

The Flowers Take the Tears.—Joseph S. Cotter, Sr. 

T/ie Glory of the Day Was in Her Face.—J. W. 

Johnson.-226 


50 

153 

99 

263 

81 

245 

106 

137 

17 

69 

65 

150 

179 

‘98 


* 


V 

>96 


*r_ 

»- 

% 427 
139 
182 
i 56 
109 
262 
76 


These Are My People.—Fenton Johnson . 
Threshing Floor, The.—Joseph S. Cotter, Sr. 
Time to Die.—R. G. Dandridge .... 
To .—R. G. Dandridge. 


To a Negro^lother.—Ben E. Burrell . 

To America/—J. W. Johnson . . . ^ 

To a Caged Canary .... —L. P. Hill . 

To a Nobly-Gifted Singer.—L. P. Hill 
To a Rosebud.—Miss Eva A. Jessye . 

To a Wild Rose.—W. E. Bailey 
To Hollyhocks.—G. M. McClellan . 

To My Grandmother.—Mrs. Mae Smith Johnson 


100 

75 

171 

171 

249 

53 

136 

137 
141 


A ±<±1 4 
.^213 


176 

251 







INDEX OF TITLES 285 

PAGE 

To My Lost Child.—Will Sexton.233 

To My Neighbor Boy.—Mrs. J. W. Hammond . 143 

To My Son.—Mrs. Georgia Douglas Johnson . . 232 

To Keep the Memory of Charlotte Forten Grimke. 

—Miss Angelina W. Grimke.155 

To Our Boys.—Irvin W. Underhill.185 

Truth.—Mrs. Frances E. W. Harper .... 28 

Turn Out the Light.—J. H. Jones, Jr.114 

Vashti.—Mrs. Frances E. W. Harper . v . . . 30 

Victim of Microbes, A.—J. Mord Allen . . . 224 

Violets.—Mrs. Alice Dunbar-Nelson .... 55 

Want of You, The.—Miss Angelina W. Grimke . 154 

We Wear the Mask.—Paul Laurence Dunbar . . 47 

What Is the Negro Doing?—W. Clarence Jordan 190 
What Need Have I for Memory?—Mrs. Georgia 

Douglas Johnson.149 

While April Breezes Blow.—D. T. Williamson . 260 

Winter Twilight, A.—Miss Angelina W. Grimke . 153 

With the Lark.—Paul Laurence Dunbar ... 46 

Young Warrior, The.—J. W. Johnson .... 94 

Zalka Peetruza.—R. G. Dandridge.130 







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